Fluorine tin oxide-supported copper nanofilms as effective and selective denitration electrocatalysts

Due to widespread water pollution with nitrate ion, methods to remove or lower the nitrate concentrations in water are needed. A novel route to reproducibly electro-deposit copper nano -films, with no need for additional treatments or additives, from acidic media onto fluorine-doped tin oxide/glass (Cu@FTO) is described. The films involve elemental copper nanoparticles inside copper agglomerates of larger sizes. Within 2 h, at ambient potential (-1.8 V), the Cu@FTO electrode reduces aqueous nitrate ions (-40%) more effectively than the benchmark bare Cu metal sheet (~& nbsp;11%). The Cu@FTO is also more selective to N-2 production (~& nbsp;30%) compared to bare Cu sheet with only (~& nbsp;1.1%). Furthermore, the Cu@FTO effectively functions for 7 h and continues to bring down the nitrate ion concentration from 200 ppm to acceptable levels (less than 60 ppm), reproducibly in 5 attempts. The results are promising for future water de-nitration processes using easy-to -prepare Cu@FTO electrodes, aiming at producing electrodes for continuous flow reactors at larger scale.