Electrochemical removal of ammonium nitrogen in high efficiency and N2 selectivity using non-noble single-atomic iron catalyst
Lizhi Zhang , Fengjiao Quan , Guangming Zhan , Bing Zhou , Cancan Ling , Xiaobing Wang , Wenjuan Shen , Jianfen Li , Falong Jia
DOI:10.1016/j.jes.2022.03.004
Received January 03, 2022,Revised , Accepted March 03, 2022, Available online March 12, 2022
Volume 35,2023,Pages 544-552
Ammonia nitrogen (NH4+-N) is a ubiquitous environmental pollutant, especially in offshore aquaculture systems. Electrochemical oxidation is very promising to remove NH4+-N, but suffers from the use of precious metals anodes. In this work, a robust and cheap electrocatalyst, iron single-atoms distributed in nitrogen-doped carbon (Fe-SAs/N-C), was developed for electrochemical removal of NH4+-N from in wastewater containing chloride. The Fe-SAs/N-C catalyst exhibited superior activity than that of iron nanoparticles loaded carbon (Fe-NPs/N-C), unmodified carbon and conventional Ti/IrO2-TiO2-RuO2 electrodes. And high removal efficiency (> 99%) could be achieved as well as high N2 selectivity (99.5%) at low current density. Further experiments and density functional theory (DFT) calculations demonstrated the indispensable role of single-atom iron in the promoted generation of chloride derived species for efficient removal of NH4+-N. This study provides promising inexpensive catalysts for NH4+-N removal in aquaculture wastewater.
