Sulfur-Vacancy Defective MoS2 as a Promising Electrocatalyst for Nitrogen Reduction Reaction under Mild Conditions

Developing low-cost and efficient nanomaterials to transform nitrogen to ammonia under mild conditions is an attractive topic in chemistry and is significant for sustaining agriculture and life. In this work, the catalytic performance of three types of MoS2 electrocatalysts is systematically investigated. The density of states shows noticeable improvement in the electrical conductivity for sulfur-vacancy defective MoS2 (V-S-MoS2) than that of pure MoS2, as it facilitates the following electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR). V-S-MoS2 possesses excellent NRR catalytic performance with a limiting potential of -0.48 V, an outstanding NH3 average yield of 29.55 mu g h(-1) mg(cat.)(-1) at -0.5 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), and a high faraday efficiency of 4.58 % at -0.3 V vs RHE. The hydrogenation of *N-NH to *NH-NH is the rate determining step of the enzymatic mechanism. These results demonstrate the feasibility of V-S-MoS2 for electrocatalytic ammonia synthesis.