Biological nitrogen fixation, as a major biological process that comprises natural nitrogen circle, is the process of reducing molecular dinitrogen (N2) to bioavailable ammonia catalyzed by microbial nitrogenase. Such process could be hybridized with electrocatalytic interface to incorporate the advantages of inorganic catalysts such as high through-put. However, well-controlled lower-than-ambient O2 concentration environment is required for this process to occur due to the paradoxical role of O2: on one hand a necessity for energy-supplying respiration for cells, on the other hand an inhibitor for nitrogenase. In nature, the root nodule system is able to maintain well-defined low O2 level habitat for the bacteria within it by limiting the influx of O2 and consuming O2 during its diffusion within the tissue. Inspired by this strategy, here we solve the fundamental contradiction with a platform that uses an O2-consuming micro-wire array electrochemical interface to achieve controllable low O2 concentration-microenvironment in air, offering protection to O2-sensitive catalyst such as nitrogenase in O2-consuming reactions within the array.

Micro-structured electrode enabling O2-incompatible biological nitrogen reduction in air

2019 Fall National Meeting

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.