View article

Nitrogen fixation under ambient conditions remains a significant challenge. Here, we report nitrogen fixation by Ru single-atom electrocatalytic reduction at room temperature and pressure. In contrast to Ru nanoparticles, single Ru sites supported on N-doped porous carbon greatly promoted electroreduction of aqueous N₂ selectively to NH₃, affording an NH₃ formation rate of 3.665 at −0.21 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode. Importantly, the addition of ZrO₂ was found to significantly suppress the competitive hydrogen evolution reaction. An NH₃ faradic efficiency of about 21% was achieved at a low overpotential (0.17 V), surpassing many other reported catalysts. Experiments combined with density functional theory calculations showed that the Ru sites with oxygen vacancies were major active centers that permitted stabilization of *NNH, destabilization of *H, and enhanced N₂ …