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The electrochemical synthesis of ammonia through reduction of nitrate offers renewable alternative to the resource-intensive Haber-Bosch process but the sluggish kinetics and the competitive hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) are the main hurdles. Here, we reported CdS@MoS2 core-shell heterostructure with directional distribution of electrons from CdS to MoS2 that reduced the overpotential for nitrate reduction and suppressed the HER. The CdS@MoS2 core-shell heterostructure exhibited higher electrochemical surface area (ESCA, 4.61 mF/cm2), lower charge transfer resistance (6.09 Ω), and minor Tafel slope (35 mV dec−1). Owing to these favorable electrochemical properties, CdS@MoS2 core-shell heterostructure achieved a high yield of 1.68 mmol with exceptional faradaic efficiency (FE) of 96%, surpassing pristine CdS, MoS2, WS2 analogues, and vacancies engineered variants. The electrocatalyst showed outstanding stability by retaining 78% of FE after 10 cycles. This study establishes valuable insights regarding the effective engineering of core-shell structure for efficient electrochemical transformations.
Ul et al. (2026) studied this question.