Reductive nitrogen species activation via pulsed electrolysis : recent advances and future prospects

Abstract

The electrochemical reduction of nitrogen species offers a sustainable route to mitigate environmental nitrogen pollution while enabling the production of value-added chemicals such as ammonia, hydroxylamine, and C─N coupled organonitrogen compounds. However, the practical implementation of conventional potentiostatic methods is hindered by poor product selectivity and competing hydrogen evolution. Pulsed electrolysis has emerged as a transformative strategy to address these challenges by synchronizing catalyst surface dynamics with local microenvironmental changes and reaction kinetics. This mini-review highlights recent advances in pulsed electrolysis for nitrogen species reduction, with a particular focus on how dynamic potentials influence electrocatalyst behavior and the surrounding reaction environment. Key mechanistic insights and cutting-edge research findings are discussed, followed by an outlook on established systems and future directions toward scalable and energy-efficient nitrogen activation.