Lithium-Mediated Nitrogen Reduction in a Flow Electrolyzer Cell Using a Gas-Diffusion Cathode with Carbonaceous Reaction Layers

Lithium-mediated nitrogen reduction (LNRR) shows promise for sustainable NH3 production, but flow electrolyzers incorporating gas-diffusion electrodes (GDEs) have rarely been studied toward this application. This work investigates cathode GDEs using inexpensive carbonaceous reaction layers to achieve stable and active NH3 electrosynthesis for over 8 h under pulsed currents. Particularly, the amorphous C45 demonstrates superior durability over Vulcan, Vulcan-supported Pt, and graphitic SFG6L at −5 mA cm–2. Replacing Nafion with polyvinylidene fluoride as the binder improves the NH3 production rate (3.11 ± 0.41 μmol h–1 cm–2) and Faradaic efficiency (5.0 ± 0.65%), outperforming prior precious-metal-free cathode results.