Facile Ammonia Synthesis from Electrocatalytic N₂ Reduction under Ambient Conditions on N‑Doped Porous Carbon

Ammonia has been used in important areas such as agriculture and clean energy. Its synthesis from the electrochemical reduction of N₂ is an attractive alternative to the industrial method that requires high temperature and pressure. Currently, electrochemical N₂ fixation has suffered from slow kinetics due to the difficulty of N₂ adsorption and NN cleavage. Here, N-doped porous carbon (NPC) is reported as a cost-effective electrocatalyst for ammonia synthesis from electrocatalytic N₂ reduction under ambient conditions, where its N content and species were tuned to enhance N₂ chemical adsorption and NN cleavage. The resulting NPC was effective for fixing N₂ to ammonia with a high ammonia production rate (1.40 mmol g^–1 h^–1 at −0.9 V vs RHE). Experiments combined with density functional theory calculations revealed pyridinic and pyrrolic N were active sites for ammonia synthesis and their contents were crucial for promoting ammonia production on NPC. The energy-favorable pathway for ammonia synthesis was *NN → *NHNH → *NH₂–NH₂ → 2NH<sub>3