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Copper–palladium hydride interfaces promote electrochemical ammonia synthesis

Nature Synthesis volume 5, pages 433–444 (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

The electrocatalytic conversion of nitrate (NO3−) in NO3−-rich wastewater streams to ammonia (NH3) can promote reactive nitrogen recovery and decentralized energy storage. However, it remains challenging to efficiently produce NH3 from NO3−. Here we designed a high-performance CuPd bimetallic catalyst with abundant Cu–Pd hydride interfaces under electrochemical NO3− reduction reaction conditions. The NH3 production rate in a membrane electrode assembly electrolyser reached ∼19.9 mmol h−1 cm−2 with a current density of 5.0 A cm−2 at ∼2.56 V, and the catalyst remained stable at 2.0 A cm−2 with an NH3 Faradaic efficiency of ∼86.8% for 1,000 h. Mechanistic studies attribute the high performance to the Cu–Pd hydride interface structure that facilitates *NO hydrogenation and *NH3 desorption. Furthermore, we successfully extended the high performance to an electrolyser stack with five 100-cm2 membrane electrode assemblies. The demonstrated scalability and long-term robustness underscore the industrial applicability of this approach for upstream integration with NOx sources.

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Fig. 1: Structure and composition characterization of the CuPd_Interface.
Fig. 2: NO3−RR performance of the CuPd_Interface.
Fig. 3: Origin of the promoted NO3−RR performance over the CuPd_Interface.
Fig. 4: NO3−RR mechanism investigation.
Fig. 5: Scale-up demonstration.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available within the paper and the Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB0600200, G.W.), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (22125205, G.W.; 22302204, P.W.; 22321002, G.W.; 22350710789, G.W.), the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (25DZ3000400, G.W.), the Liaoning Binhai Laboratory (LBLF-2023-02, G.W.), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (20720220008, G.W.) and the Photon Science Center for Carbon Neutrality (JZHKYPT-2021-07, G.W.). We thank the staff of the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility beamlines BL11B and BL14W1 for assistance with XAS measurements. We thank M. Gong and S. Cha for assistance with the ATR-SEIRAS measurements. We thank F. Yang and S. Lou for assistance with the ICP-OES measurements.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Yunfan Fu, Shuo Wang.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, iChEM (Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials), Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, China

    Yunfan Fu, Shuo Wang, Pengfei Wei, Yi Wang, Rongtan Li, Jiaqi Shao, Dunfeng Gao, Qiang Fu, Guoxiong Wang & Xinhe Bao

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Yunfan Fu, Yi Wang & Jiaqi Shao

  3. Department of Chemistry, Advanced Institute of Future Energy, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Electrochemical and Thermochemical Conversion for Resources Recycling, iChEM (Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials), State Key Laboratory of Porous Materials for Separation and Conversion, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Guoxiong Wang

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Contributions

G.W. and X.B. supervised the project and conceived of the idea. Y.F. designed and synthesized the materials, and conducted the electrochemical and structural characterizations. S.W. performed the theoretical calculation study. P.W. performed in situ XRD analyses and the scale-up demonstration. R.L. and Q.F. performed quasi in situ XPS analyses. Y.F., S.W., P.W., Y.W., R.L., J.S., D.G., Q.F, G.W. and X.B. discussed the experimental results. Y.F., S.W., P.W., D.G., Q.F., G.W. and X.B. wrote and edited the paper with input from all authors. All authors discussed the results and assisted during the preparation of the paper.

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Correspondence to Pengfei Wei or Guoxiong Wang.

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Nature Synthesis thanks Ramendra Sundar Dey, Geun Ho Gu and Jason Chun-Ho Lam for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: Alexandra Groves, in collaboration with the Nature Synthesis team.

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Supplementary Methods, Figs. 1–61, Tables 1–18 and References 1–31.

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Fu, Y., Wang, S., Wei, P. et al. Copper–palladium hydride interfaces promote electrochemical ammonia synthesis. Nat. Synth 5, 433–444 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44160-025-00941-1

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