Enhanced electrocatalytic performance of mesoporous Au-Rh bimetallic films for ammonia synthesis

Abstract Electrocatalysis nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) is expected to achieve sustainable clean and sustainable NH3 production. Owing to the chemical inertness of N2, the design of efficient catalysts is a critical issue. In this work, we propose micelle-assisted replacement method to in situ synthesize mesoporous Au3Rh film on Ni foam (mAu3Rh/NF). Because of the bimetallic mesoporous and binder-free structures, mAu3Rh/NF obtains high Faraday efficiency of 23.84% and NH3 yield of 26.29 μg h-1 mg-1cat. for NRR in 0.1 M Na2SO4 at −0.1 V, outperforming other counterparts with different Au/Rh ratios. This micelle-assisted synthesis method is universal to synthesize high-efficiency mesoporous noble films for NRR and beyond.