Communication—Partial Oxidation of MnS for Synergistic Electrocatalysis of N2-to-NH3 Fixation at Ambient Conditions

Compared with the traditional Haber-Bosch process, electrochemical N2 to NH3 reduction affords an eco-friendly and sustainable alternative to ambient NH3 synthesis with the aid of efficient electrocatalysts. In this work, partial oxidation of MnS to obtain the MnS-Mn3O4 is proved as a promising noble-free electrocatalysts of N2 to NH3 fixation at ambient conditions. When tested in 0.1 M Na2SO4, the electrochemical N2 reduction reaction performance of MnS-Mn3O4 is improved comparing with the MnS, which achieves large NH3 yield of 16.74 μg h–1 mgcat.–1 and a high Faradaic efficiency of 5.72%. It also exhibits excellent selectivity of N2 to NH3 and strong long-term electrochemical stability.