Electrochemical Reduction of Gaseous Nitric Oxide to Ammonia Using Co/Mo-Based Nitrogen-Doped Carbon Catalysts in a Catholyte-Free PEM System
Sun Hyung Kim a, Hee Tae Beum a, Joonmok Shim a, Jae Hyung Kim a, Howon Jung a, Hyung Chul Yoon a
a Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER), Yuseong District, Daejeon, South Korea, Daejeon, Korea, Republic of
Proceedings of MATSUS Spring 2026 Conference (MATSUSSpring26)
E1 Breaking New Bonds: Electrocatalysis for Emerging Transformations
Barcelona, Spain, 2026 March 23rd - 27th
Organizers: María Escudero-Escribano and Ifan Stephens
Poster, Sun Hyung Kim, 759
Publication date: 15th December 2025

Electrochemical conversion of nitric oxide (NO) to ammonia (NH₃) offers a compelling pathway that unifies NOₓ mitigation with sustainable chemical production. Compared with the nitrogen reduction reaction from N₂, NO reduction provides more favorable reaction kinetics and thus enables higher selectivity under ambient conditions. In this work, we demonstrate efficient gaseous NO reduction using Co- and Mo-based nitrogen-doped carbon catalysts integrated into a proton exchange membrane (PEM) flow cell operating without a catholyte. Under a continuous stream of 1% NO, the CoMo-NC catalyst delivered superior performance among the tested materials, achieving an NH₃ yield rate of 23.2 × 10⁻¹⁰ mol·s⁻¹·cm⁻² at −2.2 V_cell and a Faradaic efficiency of 94.6% at −1.6 V_cell. The catalyst also exhibited enhanced operational durability during prolonged gas-phase electrolysis. These results represent one of the highest reported NH₃ Faradaic efficiencies for room-temperature electrochemical NO reduction, underscoring the potential of NORR-based systems as an integrated solution for NO elimination and decentralized NH₃ synthesis.

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