Molecular Engineering of a Metal-Organic Polymer for Enhanced Electrochemical Nitrate-to-Ammonia Conversion and Zinc Nitrate Batteries

Rong ZHANG, Hu HONG, Xinghui LIU, Shaoce ZHANG, Chuan LI, Huilin CUI, Yanbo WANG, Jiahua LIU, Yue HOU, Pei LI, Zhaodong HUANG, Ying GUO, Chunyi ZHI*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal PublicationsJournal Article (refereed)peer-review

21 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Metal–organic framework-based materials are promising single-site catalysts for electrocatalytic nitrate (NO3) reduction to value-added ammonia (NH3) on account of well-defined structures and functional tunability but still lack a molecular-level understanding for designing the high-efficient catalysts. Here, we proposed a molecular engineering strategy to enhance electrochemical NO3-to-NH3 conversion by introducing the carbonyl groups into 1,2,4,5-tetraaminobenzene (BTA) based metal-organic polymer to precisely modulate the electronic state of metal centers. Due to the electron-withdrawing properties of the carbonyl group, metal centers can be converted to an electron-deficient state, fascinating the NO3 adsorption and promoting continuous hydrogenation reactions to produce NH3. Compared to CuBTA with a low NO3-to-NH3 conversion efficiency of 85.1 %, quinone group functionalization endows the resulting copper tetraminobenzoquinone (CuTABQ) distinguished performance with a much higher NH3 FE of 97.7 %. This molecular engineering strategy is also universal, as verified by the improved NO3-to-NH3 conversion performance on different metal centers, including Co and Ni. Furthermore, the assembled rechargeable Zn−NO3 battery based on CuTABQ cathode can deliver a high power density of 12.3 mW cm−2. This work provides advanced insights into the rational design of metal complex catalysts through the molecular-level regulation for NO3 electroreduction to value-added NH3.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere202309930
JournalAngewandte Chemie - International Edition
Volume62
Issue number48
Early online date12 Oct 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Nov 2023
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China under Project 2019YFA0705104. This work was supported in part by InnoHK Project on [Project 1.3 ‐ Flexible and Stretchable Technologies (FAST) for monitoring of CVD risk factors: Sensing and Applications] at Hong Kong Centre for Cerebro‐cardiovascular Health Engineering (COCHE). We thank Dr. M. K. TSE from the Department of Chemistry of the City University of Hong Kong for the NMR measurements.

Keywords

  • Metal–Organic Framework
  • NH3 Synthesis
  • NO3− Reduction
  • Zinc Batteries

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