N, P Co-doped porous carbon electrocatalyst fabricated through relieving the competition effect between N source and P source with enhanced nitrogen reduction reaction

Dual heteroatoms-doped non-metal catalysts have aroused wide concern in electrocatalytic conversion of nitrogen gas. However, the development of electrocatalyst synthesis strategies for relieving the competition effect between dual heteroatoms is still remaining a challenge, which not only observably affect the microstructure of electrocatalyst but also further adjust the catalytic activity of electrocatalyst. Herein, zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF-8) with N source and triphenylphosphine (TPP) with P source served as precursors to fabricate NCP-DX (X = 1, 3, and 5) electrocatalysts by two-step pyrolysis method. The resulted NCP-D3 by calcinating the NC and TPP with the mass ratio of 1: 3 exhibited a high NH3 yield of 33.02 μg h−1·mg−1cat. and Faraday efficiency of 7.19 % in 0.05 M H2SO4 at −0.3 V vs. RHE under ambient conditions. More importantly, the NCP-D3 electrocatalyst exhibited high stability and selectivity. This insight gained from this study will aid to fabricate dual heteroatoms-doped non-metal catalysts, and even multiple heteroatoms-doped catalysts by rational introduction of heteroatoms for the widespread application.