Electrocatalytic reduction of nitrogen to ammonia in ionic liquids

TL;DR

This paper reviews the use of ionic liquids as green solvents to improve electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction to ammonia, offering a promising alternative to traditional methods with milder conditions and less pollution.

Contribution

It summarizes the fundamentals, roles, selection principles, and future directions of ionic liquids in electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reactions.

Findings

Ionic liquids enhance electrocatalytic NRR performance.

ILs enable milder reaction conditions.

Future research directions are identified.

Abstract

Ammonia NH3 is an important raw material for nitrogen fertilizer production and is widely used in industry. It is also a carbon free renewable fuel and an excellent hydrogen storage material. Reaction conditions of traditional Haber Bosch process are very harsh although it supports most of todays NH3 production. Recently, electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction NRR has become one of the effective alternative methods to the traditional Haber Bosch process due to the advantages of mild operation conditions and almost no environmental pollutions. Ionic liquids ILs act as one of green solvents possess a lot of unique features and have shown excellent performance in electrocatalytic NRR process. In this review, we summarize fundamentals of the electrocatalytic NRR, the role of ILs in several typical electrocatalytic processes, and the possible role of ILs in the electrocatalytic NRR process. Moreover, the selection principles and issues of the application of ILs, as well as the future development direction for the electrocatalytic NRR process are concluded.