Electrochemical Synthesis of Urea: Co-reduction of Nitric Oxide and Carbon Monoxide

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

  • Hao Wan
  • Xingli Wang
  • Lei Tan
  • Michael Filippi
  • Peter Strasser
  • Rossmeisl, Jan
  • Alexander Bagger

Electrocatalytic conversion is a promising technology for storing renewable electricity in the chemical form. Substantial efforts have been made on the multicarbon feedstock production, while little is known about producing nitrogen-containing chemicals like urea via C-N coupling. Here, we elucidate the possible urea production on metals through coreduction of nitric oxide (NO) and carbon oxide (CO). Based on adsorption energies calculated by density functional theory (DFT), we find that Cu is able to bind both *NO and *CO while not binding *H. During NO + CO coreduction, we identify two kinetically and thermodynamically possible C-N couplings via *CO + *N and *CONH + *N, and further hydrogenation leads to urea formation. A 2-D activity heatmap has been constructed for describing nitrogen conversion to urea. This work provides a clear example of using computational simulations to predict selective and active materials for urea production.

Original languageEnglish
JournalACS Catalysis
Volume13
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)1926-1933
Number of pages8
ISSN2155-5435
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We acknowledge support from the Research Grant No. 9455 from VILLUM FONDEN. The Center for High Entropy Alloys Catalysis is sponsored by the Danish National Research Foundation centers of excellence, Project DNRF149. A.B. acknowledges assistance from the Carlsberg Foundation (CF21-0144). P.S. acknowledges financial support by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant No. 101006701, EcoFuel.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 American Chemical Society.

    Research areas

  • C−N coupling, DFT Simulations, Electrocatalysis, NO Removal, Urea Synthesis

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