Steering competitive N₂ and CO adsorption toward efficient urea production with a confined dual site.

ABSTRACT: Electrocatalytic urea synthesis under mild conditions via the nitrogen (N₂) and carbon monoxide (CO) coupling represents an ideal and green alternative to the energy-intensive traditional synthetic protocol. However, this process is challenging due to the more favorable CO adsorption than N₂ at the catalytic site, making the formation of the key urea precursor (*NCON) extremely difficult. Herein, we theoretically construct a spatially isolated dual-site (D_S) catalyst with the confinement effect to manipulate the competitive CO and N₂ adsorption, which successfully guarantees the dominant horizontal N₂ adsorption and subsequent efficient *NCON formation via C-N coupling and achieves efficient urea synthesis. Among all the

SUBMITTER: Chen Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10646942 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature