The expanding agricultural practices rely on carbon- and energy-intensive Bosch–Meiser processes for urea synthesis. Alternatively, electrochemical coupling of CO₂ and N₂ is emerging as a sustainable approach. Unfortunately, the high energy barrier for N₂ and CO₂ cracking for C–N bond coupling limits the urea synthesis efficiency. Herein, we have electrodeposited Bi on Cu foil via triple pulse voltage, and the fabricated Bi(0.01 V)@Cu electrode demonstrates a high yield rate of 646 μg h^–1 mg^–1_cat. of urea with 70.7% Faradaic efficiency at −0.45 V vs RHE. The isotopic labeling experiments assert that the produced urea is solely from the dissolved CO₂ and N₂ gases. More importantly, we have utilized in situ electrochemical Raman spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) measurements to monitor the real-time formation of urea, further supported by a microelectrochemical approach using a Pt-microelectrode and the results were verified by density functional theory (DFT) analysis. Moving a step forward, plant growth and flowering upon addition of extracted urea have been demonstrated for practical application.

中文翻译：

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通过 N2 和 CO2 的共还原实现 Bi/Cu 的脉冲电沉积，实现高产率尿素生产


不断扩大的农业实践依赖于碳和能源密集型的 Bosch-Meiser 工艺来合成尿素。或者，CO₂ 和 N₂ 的电化学耦合正在成为一种可持续的方法。不幸的是，C-N 键偶联的 N₂ 和 CO₂ 开裂的高能垒限制了尿素合成效率。在本文中，我们通过三脉冲电压在铜箔上电沉积了 Bi，制造的 Bi（0.01 V）@Cu 电极在 -0.45 V vs RHE 下表现出 646 μg h^–1 mg^–1_cat. 尿素的高产率和 70.7% 的法拉第效率。同位素标记实验断言，产生的尿素完全来自溶解的 CO₂ 和 N₂ 气体。更重要的是，我们利用原位电化学拉曼光谱和傅里叶变换红外 （FTIR） 测量来监测尿素的实时形成，进一步得到了使用 Pt 微电极的微电化学方法的支持，结果通过密度泛函理论 （DFT） 分析进行了验证。向前迈进一步，添加提取的尿素后植物生长和开花已被证明可用于实际应用。