In recent years, the overabundance of reactive nitrogen species in the environment, especially nitrate, due to the over fertilization of crop fields, has received considerable amount of attention in the scientific community. Related results, such as a sever transgressed planetary boundary of the N-cycle, eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems, and direct threat to human health has started the surge to remove excessive nitrate from the environment.^[1] In particular, electrochemical methods have emerged as a promising approach since it not only allows to remove nitrate under ambient conditions, but also to convert the toxic pollutant into a value-added product, such as ammonia.^[2] Despite recent progress in the development of active, selective, and stable electrocatalysts for the nitrate to ammonia reduction, a sever challenge to date is the recovery of the produced ammonia from the dilute aqueous solutions.

In our work we have demonstrated how operating the electrochemical nitrate reduction at high current densities (>700 mA cm⁻²) in alkaline media allows to turn the undesired but unavoidable Joule-losses into a beneficial process by using the in situ generated heat to directly volatilize the produced ammonia in the electrolyte.^[3] The so termed “Joule-Stripping Strategy” of ammonia combined with a subsequent acid trap enables to collect >95% of the formed ammonia as solid, avoiding additional post-catalytic time and energy intensive extraction steps to obtain ammonia from the aqueous electrolyte.

[1] Y. Xiong, Y. Wang, J. Zhou, F. Liu, F. Hao, Z. Fan, Advanced Materials, 2024, 36, 2304021

[2] Y.-Z. Xu, D. F. Abbott, R. N. Dürr, T. N. Huan, V. Mougel, Advanced Energy Materials, 2024, 14, 2402294

[3] Y.-Z. Xu, R. N. Dürr, F. Häfliger, D. F. Abbott, V. Mougel, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2025, e202504174