(Correspondent:Xiaoxia Bai) Recently, Associate Professor Zhao Zhenhuan’s team of Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology published paper,Band structure engineering of bioinspired Fe doped SrMoO4 for enhanced photocatalytic nitrogen reduction performance,in top international journal,Nano Energy(Impact Factor of 2018 is 15.548). The study realizedcontrollable preparation of visible-light-driven photocatalyst of semiconductor band engineering, which can restore nitrogen molecules to ammonia. This study provided new method for sustainablegreen technology ofnitrogen fixation.
Luo Jingying,the postgraduate student of School of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology is the lead author. Bai Xiaoxia,theyoung teacher of School of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, is theco-lead author, and Associate Professor Zhao Zhenhhuan as well as Professor Liu Hong of State Key Lab of Crystal Materials are corresponding authors. Xidian University is the lead unit.
At present, energy and environmental problems have always been the important challenges for countries across the world to achieve sustainable economic and social development. Ammonia is not only important raw material for the synthesis of industrial and agricultural chemicals, but also a potential energy carrier. At present, industrial preparation of ammonia from nitrogen fixation mainly usesHaber-Bosch process which requires high pressure and temperature and hydrogen mainly made of natural gas reforming. However, during the process of natural gas reforming, large amount of greenhouse will be discharged which will cause serious pollution to environment. What’s more, natural gas is non-renewable resource. Therefore, it is of significance to develop sustainable green technology of nitrogen fixation. Photocatalyzed nitrogen fixation uses semiconductor materials to absorb solar energy and generate electrons and holes. Photogenerated electrons can reduce inert nitrogen molecules to ammonia under mild conditions, which is considered as a potential green nitrogen fixation technology. This research is also the forefront and hot research field in various countries in the world.
Figure Image Band Structure of Fe doped SrMoO4 and Mechanism ofPhotocatalytic Nitrogen Fixation
In the previous studies, the nitrogen fixation activity of semiconductor photocatalyst mainly comes from oxygen vacancies and other defects, band structure of catalyzer itself cannot meet the demand of nitrogen reduction in terms of thermodynamics. For one thing, to ensure that the process of photocatalytic nitrogen fixation is possible in terms ofthermodynamics, Associate Professor Zhao Zhenhuan’s team adopted SrMoO4,a kind of semiconductor with wide bandgap, which fully meet the demand ofnitrogen reduction in terms of in terms ofthermodynamics. For another, the team put forward the approach to dope SrMoO4 with transition metal Fe so that the semiconductor catalyst not only has enough catalytic activity to promote the interfacial reaction, but also can absorb as much sunlight as possible. Visible light responsive photocatalysts for nitrogen fixation is obtained by doping. The bandgap structure obtained through narrowing bandgap by transition metal doping realized photocatalytic nitrogen fixation driving by solar energy with high efficiency, providing an effective strategy for the design of new nitrogen fixation photocatalysts.
Introduction of Authors:
Luo Jingying ispostgraduate student of the School of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology (2018). Her current research interest is in design and preparation of semiconductor photocatalytic materials. She participated in Taishan Academic Forum, Advanced Interdisciplinary Special, and was awardedExcellent Wall Newspaper Award by organizing committee ofTaishan Academic Forum,Chinese Chemical Society and Chinese Chemical Letters.
Bai Xiaoxia is a young teacher ofthe School of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology. Her research interest is in energy storage and conversion, metal corrosion protection and biosensor.
Zhao Zhenhuanis an associate professor of School of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology. He was elected elite talents of "Huashan Scholars Program" of Xidian University. His research is mainly focused on clean energy conversion and storage, and biosensor. Over 40 articles of his research findings were included in SCI, top international journals, includingChemical Society Review, Advanced Materials, ACS Nano, Nano Energy, ACS Catalysis. One chapter of his works was published bySpringer Internationa.He has 5 authorized patents in China, applied 1 patent in the United States, and 7 ESI highly cited papers. One of his papers entered top 1% in 2015Royal Society of Chemistry, and was cited by Google for over 3000 times, and its h-factor is 26.
Link to the paper:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211285519308948?via%3Dihub
