Fe‐Co‐Ni Ternary Single‐Atom Catalysts for Efficient Electrochemical Nitrate Reduction

ABSTRACT Electrochemical nitrate reduction offers a sustainable route to water remediation and ammonia synthesis, yet its activity and selectivity are fundamentally limited by scaling relationships of single‐metal active sites. Here, we report a non‐equilibrium strategy that enables the construction of atomically dispersed FeCoNi trimetallic single‐atom catalyst. In‐situ experiments and theoretical calculations reveal that synergistic metal centers stabilize nitric oxide and promote its hydrogenation with a reduced activation barrier. The catalyst achieves an excellent Faradaic efficiency of 99.4% and a yield rate of 650 µmol h −1 cm −2 in 1 M KOH with 100 mM nitrate, placing it among the top‐performing multi‐metal single‐atom catalysts. Integration into a zinc‐nitrate battery enables simultaneous nitrate removal, sustained electricity generation, and continuous ammonia production. This work provides a general strategy for constructing multi‐metal active sites for nitrate valorization and ammonia synthesis.

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Publication Details

Journal
Small
Published
2026-07-16
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.74565
Primary Topic
Ammonia Synthesis and Nitrogen Reduction
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Fe‐Co‐Ni Ternary Single‐Atom Catalysts for Efficient Electrochemical Nitrate Reduction

T R Wang, Fei‐Yue Gao, Ya‐Rong Zheng, Chuan‐Ling Zhang et al.
Small
Ammonia Synthesis and Nitrogen Reduction
article

Fe‐Co‐Ni Ternary Single‐Atom Catalysts for Efficient Electrochemical Nitrate Reduction

T R Wang, Fei‐Yue Gao, Ya‐Rong Zheng, Chuan‐Ling Zhang, Zhaojian Zhang, Xinwei Guan, X Q Li, Jiale Zhang, Jianbo He, Zhenyu Wu, Wang Zhang, Xi Zhang, Chongyan Hao, Sheng Cheng, Xiandi Sun, Qiang Lu
article en

Abstract

ABSTRACT Electrochemical nitrate reduction offers a sustainable route to water remediation and ammonia synthesis, yet its activity and selectivity are fundamentally limited by scaling relationships of single‐metal active sites. Here, we report a non‐equilibrium strategy that enables the construction of atomically dispersed FeCoNi trimetallic single‐atom catalyst. In‐situ experiments and theoretical calculations reveal that synergistic metal centers stabilize nitric oxide and promote its hydrogenation with a reduced activation barrier. The catalyst achieves an excellent Faradaic efficiency of 99.4% and a yield rate of 650 µmol h −1 cm −2 in 1 M KOH with 100 mM nitrate, placing it among the top‐performing multi‐metal single‐atom catalysts. Integration into a zinc‐nitrate battery enables simultaneous nitrate removal, sustained electricity generation, and continuous ammonia production. This work provides a general strategy for constructing multi‐metal active sites for nitrate valorization and ammonia synthesis.

Small
Anhui University (CN), North China Electric Power University (CN), Wuhan University of Technology (CN), Southern University of Science and Technology (CN), Hefei National Center for Physical Sciences at Nanoscale (CN), Zhejiang University of Technology (CN), Zhejiang University (CN), RMIT University (AU)
National Natural Science Foundation of China, Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province, Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
Openalex Percentile: Top 23%
Ammonia Synthesis and Nitrogen Reduction
DOISourceOpenAlex
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