Electrocatalytic Nitrogen (N
2
) Reduction
Chayanika Chaliha and Eeshan Kalita
Abstract Ammonia (NH
3
) is an industrially important chemical for its use in man-
ufacturing fertilizers, carbon-free fuel and synthesis of essential biological building
blocks and as energy carrier. The most widely used industrial process NH
3
pro-
duction, the Haber–Bosch process, has several bottlenecks such as high operational
costs and high energy consumption and is a severe detriment for environment due
to its large carbon footprint. In recent decades, electrocatalysis of N
2
to produce
NH
3
has emerged as a sustainable alternative and provides an efficient means for
the production of NH
3
from N
2
under ambient conditions. Till date, various kinds of
electrocatalyst have been developed for N
2
reduction which covers a wide range of
materials that includes noble metals, transition metals, single-atom catalyst and var-
ious carbon-based metal-free composites. Also, to increase the catalytic potential,
different operational strategies have been developed that generate electrocatalysts
with low overpotential. Molecular dynamics simulation-based studies have enabled
the development of new generation electrocatalysts and have been investigated for
their thermodynamics and mechanism in nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR). The
combination of the theoretical and experimental provides a promising perspective
to develop efficient electrocatalyst with increased surface active site, selectivity and
durability in NRR.
Keywords Nitrogen · Ammonia · Electrocatalyst · NRR
1 Introduction
Ammonia (NH
3
) is one of the most essential constituent chemicals for living beings
as well as the earth’s ecosystem as an essential biological building block. It is an indis-
pensable precursor for fertilizers in agriculture production, a convenient hydrogen
carrier and an emerging clean fuel [1]. Given the importance of ammonia, Nitrogen
(N
2
) fixation through the reduction of atmospheric nitrogen (N
2
) to ammonia (NH
3
)
C. Chaliha · E. Kalita (B )
Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tezpur Univeristy, Napaam,
Assam 784028, India
e-mail: ekalita@tezu.ernet.in
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Inamuddin et al. (eds.), Sustainable Ammonia Production,
Green Energy and Technology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35106-9_6
107