Efficient and Selective Electrochemical Nitrate Reduction to N2 Using a Flow-Through Zero-Gap Electrochemical Reactor with a Reconstructed Cu(OH)2 Cathode: Insights into the Importance of Inter-Electrode Distance

Electrochemically converting nitrate, a widely distributed nitrogen contaminant, into harmless N2 is a feasible and environmentally friendly route to close the anthropogenic nitrogen-based cycle. However, it is currently hindered by sluggish kinetics and low N2 selectivity, as well as scarce attention to reactor configuration. Here, we report a flow-through zero-gap electrochemical reactor that shows a high performance of nitrate reduction with 100% conversion and 80.36% selectivity of desired N2 in the chlorine-free system at 100 mg-N·L–1 NO3 – while maintaining a rapid reduction kinetics of 0.07676 min–1. More importantly, the mass transport and current utilization efficiency are significantly improved by shortening the inter-electrode distance, especially in the zero-gap electrocatalytic system where the current efficiency reached 50.15% at 5 mA·cm–2. Detailed characterizations demonstrated that during the electroreduction process, partial Cu­(OH)2 on the cathode surface was reconstructed into stable Cu/Cu2O as the active phase for efficient nitrate reduction. In situ characterizations revealed that the highly selective *NO to *N conversion and the N–N coupling step played crucial roles during the selective reduction of NO3 – to N2 in the zero-gap electrochemical system. In addition, theoretical calculations demonstrated that improving the key intermediate *N coverage could effectively facilitate the N–N coupling step, thereby promoting N2 selectivity. Moreover, the environmental and economic benefits and long-term stability shown by the treatment of real nitrate-containing wastewater make our proposed electrocatalytic system more attractive for practical applications.