Electrochemical synthesis of ammonia from wet nitrogen via a dual-chamber reactor using La 0.6 Sr 0.4 Co 0.2 Fe 0.8 O 3− δ -Ce 0.8 Gd 0.18 Ca 0.02 O 2−δ composite cathode

A La 0.6 Sr 0.4 Co 0.2 Fe 0.8 O 3−δ -Ce 0.8 Gd 0.18 Ca 0.02 O 2−δ composite cathode was used to investigate the electrochemical synthesis of ammonia from wet nitrogen. Wet nitrogen was flown through a dual chamber reactor under atmospheric pressure leading to the successful synthesis of ammonia. Ammonia was synthesised at a rate of 1.5 × 10 −10 mol s −1 cm −2 at 400 °C when applying a dc voltage of 1.4 V, which is the highest reported to date. This rate is twice that of the observed ammonia formation rate (7 × 10 −11 mol s −1 cm −2 ) when Co-free cathode, La 0.6 Sr 0.4 FeO 3−δ -Ce 0.8 Gd 0.18 Ca 0.02 O 2−δ was used as the cathode catalyst. A higher catalytic activity for ammonia synthesis may be obtained when using a catalyst with high oxygen vacancies, with the introduction of oxygen vacancies at the cathode being a good strategy to improve the catalytic activity of ammonia synthesis.