https://www.cas.cn/syky/202512/t20251209_5091966.shtml

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44160-025-00941-1

A team from the CAS Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics constructed a highly efficient copper-palladium hydride (Cu-PdHx) interfacial active site for the electrochemical reduction of nitrate to ammonia using an in-situ electrochemical reconstruction strategy. The team assembled the catalyst into an alkaline membrane electrolyzer, achieving efficient NH3 synthesis. The study found that at a total current density of 5 A cm⁻², the ammonia Faradaic efficiency was 85.3%, the full cell voltage was 2.56 V, and the NH3 yield reached 19.9 mmol h⁻¹cm⁻². The reaction could operate stably for 1000 hours at a current density of 2 A cm⁻².

In a scale-up demonstration of this stack containing five 100 cm² electrodes connected in series, ammonia synthesis at a current of 500 A  reached 8.7 mol h⁻¹, and ammonia could be continuously produced for 100 hours at a rate of 1.6 mol h⁻¹ at a current of 100 A.