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Ampere-level ammonia synthesis through grain boundary engineering

Nature Synthesis (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

Plasma-electrolysis tandem systems can facilitate ammonia (NH3) production from air and water under ambient conditions via an ‘air → NOx → NOx− → NH3’ pathway. However, NH3 yields are limited due to a lack of process intensification between plasma generation and electrocatalytic conversion. Here we report a modified cobalt cathode enriched with twin boundaries (TBs) and stacking faults (SFs) (TB/SF-Co) for selective NO2− reduction. Mechanistic analyses reveal that TB/SF defects upshift the Co d-band centre which strengthens NO2− adsorption and promotes hydrogenation of intermediates. The material achieves a Faradaic efficiency of 96.7% for NO2−-to-NH3 conversion at a partial current density of −1.73 A cm−2. Coupling a cobalt cathode enriched with twin boundaries and stacking faults with a microwave plasma module enables efficient air-to-NH3 synthesis, achieving an air-to-NO2− rate of 0.745 mol h−1 and NO2−-to-NH3 rate of 0.619 mol h−1 with >95% Faradaic efficiency at a total current of more than 101 A in 100 cm2 parallel electrolyzers, which rivals or exceeds contemporary benchmarks.

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Fig. 1: Active surface screening.
Fig. 2: Characterization of the TB/SF-Co catalyst.
Fig. 3: Electrochemical performance of NO2− reduction.
Fig. 4: Mechanistic studies of the electrocatalytic process.
Fig. 5: MPAA–ENitR tandem system for NH3 synthesis.
Fig. 6: Techno-economic analysis of the MPAA–ENitR tandem system.

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All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the published article and its Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (grant no. 2020YFA0710000, G.Y.), the Joint Funds of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. U22A20391, G.Y.), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 22302154, H.O.), the Innovation Capability Support Program of Shaanxi (grant no. 2023-CX-TD-26, G.Y.), the Key Projects in Shaanxi Province (grant no. 2024CY2-GJHX-75, H.L.), the Program of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities (grant no. B23025, G.Y.) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant no. xtr022021007, G.Y.). We also acknowledge technical support from Xi’an Taikang Biotechnology Co., Ltd. in relation to the microwave plasma system and thank R. Zhou for his valuable assistance with plasma diagnostics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Fluorine & Nitrogen Chemicals, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

    Wei Liu  (刘威), Honghui Ou  (欧鸿辉), Yang Lv  (吕杨), Yuxi Ren  (任宇曦), Baorong Xu  (许堡荣), Wenkai Teng  (滕文凯), He Li  (李贺), Yang Li  (李阳) & Guidong Yang  (杨贵东)

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  1. Wei Liu  (刘威)
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Contributions

W.L. designed and synthesized the TB/SF-Co electrocatalyst, performed DFT calculations, constructed the microwave plasma system and the scaled MEA electrolyzer, conducted electrochemical experiments, analysed the data and wrote the paper. H.O. contributed to data analysis and interpretation, assisted with experimental design, validated key results and critically revised the paper. Y. Lv performed the MPAA–ENitR system evaluation. B.X. analysed and interpreted the DFT results. Y.R. and W.T. synthesized large-area electrodes and carried out electrode characterization. H.L. and Y. Li revised the paper. G.Y. contributed substantially to research ideas, experimental design, data analysis, supervision of the project, paper preparation and funding acquisition.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Honghui Ou  (欧鸿辉) or Guidong Yang  (杨贵东).

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Nature Synthesis thanks Ali Jalili, Guoxiong Wang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: Eric Piechota, in collaboration with the Nature Synthesis team.

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Liu, W., Ou, H., Lv, Y. et al. Ampere-level ammonia synthesis through grain boundary engineering. Nat. Synth (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44160-026-01026-3

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