Plasma‐Electrocatalysis Cascade Synthesis of Deuterated Ammonia

Deuterated ammonia (ND<sub>3</sub>) exhibits growing market demand in the fields of chemical analysis, pharmaceutical industry and semiconductor manufacturing. Currently, industrial production of ND<sub>3</sub> relies on harsh conditions and complex processes, leading to high production cost and security risk. Herein, we propose a sustainable relay strategy to produce ND<sub>3</sub> by using air and deuterium oxide (D<sub>2</sub>O) as raw materials, including plasma-driven air-to-NO<sub>x</sub> conversion and electrocatalytic NO<sub>x</sub> <sup>-</sup>-to-ND<sub>3</sub> conversion. The insufficient supply of reactive deuterium (*D) leads to sluggish kinetics of electrocatalytic deuterium reaction. The well-designed F modified cobalt (F-Co) catalyst exhibits a remarkable yield of 0.75 mmol h<sup>-1</sup> cm<sup>-2</sup> and a Faradaic efficiency of 80.43% for ND<sub>3</sub> at 200 mA cm<sup>-2</sup>. The combined results of characterizations reveal that fluorine (F) atom can boost D<sub>2</sub>O dissociation and suppress competing deuterium evolution reaction, thereby providing abundant *D for deuteration reaction. Notably, a pilot-scale demonstration system, consisting of non-thermal plasma, flow electrolyzer, air stripping and ammonia absorber, is constructed to produce practicable ND<sub>3</sub> solution (2.8 wt%) with ∼21.45 mmol h<sup>-1</sup> ND<sub>3</sub> production capability by using air and D<sub>2</sub>O as sources.

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Publication Details

Journal
Angewandte Chemie International Edition
Published
2025-09-26
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202515856
Primary Topic
Ammonia Synthesis and Nitrogen Reduction
Type
article
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article

Plasma‐Electrocatalysis Cascade Synthesis of Deuterated Ammonia

Kaiwen Yang, Shuhe Han, Yanmei Huang, Yifu Yu et al.
Angewandte Chemie International Edition
Ammonia Synthesis and Nitrogen Reduction
article

Plasma‐Electrocatalysis Cascade Synthesis of Deuterated Ammonia

Kaiwen Yang, Shuhe Han, Yanmei Huang, Yifu Yu, Qixing Wang, Bin Zhang, Runchao Qin
article en

Abstract

Deuterated ammonia (ND<sub>3</sub>) exhibits growing market demand in the fields of chemical analysis, pharmaceutical industry and semiconductor manufacturing. Currently, industrial production of ND<sub>3</sub> relies on harsh conditions and complex processes, leading to high production cost and security risk. Herein, we propose a sustainable relay strategy to produce ND<sub>3</sub> by using air and deuterium oxide (D<sub>2</sub>O) as raw materials, including plasma-driven air-to-NO<sub>x</sub> conversion and electrocatalytic NO<sub>x</sub> <sup>-</sup>-to-ND<sub>3</sub> conversion. The insufficient supply of reactive deuterium (*D) leads to sluggish kinetics of electrocatalytic deuterium reaction. The well-designed F modified cobalt (F-Co) catalyst exhibits a remarkable yield of 0.75 mmol h<sup>-1</sup> cm<sup>-2</sup> and a Faradaic efficiency of 80.43% for ND<sub>3</sub> at 200 mA cm<sup>-2</sup>. The combined results of characterizations reveal that fluorine (F) atom can boost D<sub>2</sub>O dissociation and suppress competing deuterium evolution reaction, thereby providing abundant *D for deuteration reaction. Notably, a pilot-scale demonstration system, consisting of non-thermal plasma, flow electrolyzer, air stripping and ammonia absorber, is constructed to produce practicable ND<sub>3</sub> solution (2.8 wt%) with ∼21.45 mmol h<sup>-1</sup> ND<sub>3</sub> production capability by using air and D<sub>2</sub>O as sources.

Angewandte Chemie International EditionVol. 64(46)
Tianjin University (CN), Tianjin Energy Investment Group (China) (CN), Unité Matériaux et Transformations (FR)
Openalex Percentile: Top 85%
Ammonia Synthesis and Nitrogen Reduction
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