Silica-Assisted Fabrication of N-doped Porous Carbon for Efficient Electrocatalytic Nitrogen Fixation

Here we demonstrate a silica-assisted strategy for the synthesis of N-doped porous carbon nanoparticles from zeolitic imidazolate framework precursors. As a metal-free electrocatalyst for N₂ reduction to NH₃ at ambient conditions, such porous carbon shows an improved catalytic performance compared with the counterpart without the assistance of silica, delivering a higher NH₃ formation rate of 7.22 μg h⁻¹ mg_cat⁻¹ and a Faradic efficiency of 7.42 % in 0.1 M HCl solution. The mesopores involved in the carbon catalyst are supposed to be responsible for the efficient electroreduction of N₂.