Rapid Joule-Heating fabrication of oxygen vacancies and anchor of Ru clusters onto BiVO4 for greatly enhanced photocatalytic N2 fixation

Herein, we applied a rapid Joule heating method to form oxygen vacancies and further induced the deposition of Ru clusters onto BiVO 4 . The rapid Joule heating method fabricated oxygen vacancy on BiVO 4 , resulting in the formation of electron-rich active Ru sites and unsaturated V sites. The pristine BiVO 4 was almost no activity in photocatalytic ammonia synthesis. The photocatalytic production rate of ammonia was increased to 3.88 μmol g - 1 h -1 after the formation of oxygen vacancies, and further increased to 16.57 μmol g -1 h -1 with Ru clusters loaded on BiVO 4 . It was indicated that unsaturated V sites near the oxygen vacancy and Ru clusters might act as the reactive sites for N 2 adsorption and activation. And the strong metal-support interactions between Ru and BiVO 4 resulted in charge redistribution between Ru clusters and BiVO 4 supports, thus reducing energy barrier of the rate-determining step for the N 2 hydrogenation. Furthermore, DFT confirmed that associative alternating pathway was suitable for this process.