Increasing stability, efficiency, and fundamental understanding of lithium-mediated electrochemical nitrogen reduction

Abstract

Lithium-mediated nitrogen reduction is a proven method to electrochemically synthesize ammonia; yet the process has so far been unstable, and the continuous deposition of lithium limits its practical applicability. One major problem of further developing this process is that very little is understood about the mechanism. We develop a model to start understanding the kinetics and we use our understanding to develop a potential cycling procedure. We show experimentally that it improves stability of the system, and leads to a significant increase in faradaic efficiency.