The electro-catalytic nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) to produce ammonia is a significant and challenging mission in chemistry, in which metal-free NRR catalysts with high activity, stability and selectivity are still highly desired. Here, we have systematically investigated the properties of pristine and carbon doped hexagonal boron nitride nanoribbons (BNNRs) for efficient nitrogen capture and reduction. Our results suggest that BNNRs exhibit excellent N₂ capture abilities, which are demonstrated to be originated from the edge lone pair electrons. Then we highlight that doping carbon can significantly enhance the NRR catalytic performance of BNNRs by reducing the NRR reaction overpotential from 1.14 to 0.39 V. Further analysis unravels that doping C can selectively modulate the adsorption free energy of NRR intermediates without influencing the excellent activation ability of pristine BNNRs, which has been confirmed to arise from the charge redistribution of edge boron atoms. Our findings pave the way of h-BN for N₂ capture and pioneer the application of carbon doped BNNR as a novel NRR catalyst.

产生氨的电催化氮还原反应（NRR）是化学领域中一项重要且具有挑战性的任务，在该领域中，仍非常需要具有高活性，稳定性和选择性的无金属NRR催化剂。在这里，我们系统地研究了原始和碳掺杂的六方氮化硼纳米带（BNNR）的性能，以有效地捕获和还原氮。我们的结果表明BNNRs表现出优异的N ₂捕获能力，证明其起源于边缘孤对电子。然后我们强调指出，掺杂碳可以通过将NRR反应过电势从1.14 V降低到0.39 V来显着增强BNNRs的NRR催化性能。进一步的分析表明，掺杂C可以选择性地调节NRR中间体的吸附自由能，而不会影响NRR中间体的出色活化能力。原始的BNNRs，已证实是由边缘硼原子的电荷重新分布引起的。我们的发现为h-BN捕获N ₂铺平了道路，并开创了碳掺杂BNNR作为新型NRR催化剂的应用。