The NO
3–RR performance of B/Fe-Co
2P HNCs and Fe-Co
2P HNCs were investigated in 0.5 mol/L Na
2SO
4 electrolyte with and without 50 mmol/L NaNO
3. Both Fe-Co
2P HNCs and B/Fe-Co
2P HNCs display an obvious electroactivity for NO
3−RR, reflecting the cathodic current markedly increases after the addition of NO
3− into 0.5 mol/L Na
2SO
4 electrolyte. Compared with Fe-Co
2P HNCs without B doping, B/Fe-Co
2P HNCs exhibit a more positive onset potential and a bigger reduction peak current density for NO
3–RR, implying the outstanding NO
3−RR catalytic activity (
Fig. 4a). This phenomenon further suggests that the intrinsic NO
3−RR activity of Fe-Co
2P HNCs is significantly enhanced after B doping. Since XPS measurements show the introduction of B atoms can efficiently regulate the electronic structure of Fe-Co
2P HNCs, the electronic effect is responsible for intrinsic activity enhancement of Fe-Co
2P HNCs due to B doping. Among B/Fe-Co
2P HNCs with different B/P ratio, B/Fe-Co
2P HNCs (B: P = 2:1) has the highest NO
3–RR (Fig. S6 in Supporting information), which in turn confirms that both B and P atoms have obvious influence on NO
3–RR activity enhancement. To study the activity and selectivity of B/Fe-Co
2P HNCs for NO
3–RR, the reactant and reductive products were determined by the chronoamperometry tests at various applied potentials. After chronoamperometry tests for 3 h, colorimetric methods were used to quantity the NH
3 yields and Faradaic efficiency (Figs. S7 and S8 in Supporting information). Upon varying the applied potential from −0.5 V to −0.9 V (
vs. RHE), the NH
3 production rate and conversion rate of NO
3–RR at B/Fe-Co
2P HNCs gradually increase, while the Faradaic efficiency of NH
3 at B/Fe-Co
2P HNCs displays a volcanic shape (
Fig. 4b), similar to Fe-Co
2P HNCs (Fig. S9 in Supporting information). Compared with Fe-Co
2P HNCs, B/Fe-Co
2P HNCs displays larger NH
3 production rate and Faradaic efficiency under same potential. For example, B/Fe-Co
2P HNCs can achieve the NH
3 yield of 22.67 mg h
−1 mg
cat−1 and the Faradaic efficiency of 97.54% at −0.70 V potential (
Fig. 4c), much higher than that of Fe-Co
2P HNCs, suggesting high activity and selectivity of B/Fe-Co
2P HNCs for the NO
3− to NH
3 conversion. The control experiment performed in 0.5 mol/L Na
2SO
4 electrolyte only generates negligible NH
3, excluding the interference of catalysts and environmental contaminants (Fig. S10 in Supporting information). Impressively, B/Fe-Co
2P HNCs have higher NH
3 yield and Faradaic efficiency than most previously reported non-precious metal electrocatalysts for NO
3–RR (Table S1 in Supporting information), further demonstrating the high electroactivity of B/Fe-Co
2P HNCs. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) characterization displays that the charge transfer resistance of NO
3−RR at B/Fe-Co
2P HNCs (49.3 Ω) is much smaller than that at Fe-Co
2P HNCs (125 Ω), suggesting that the B doping accelerates the reaction kinetics of NO
3–RR (
Fig. 4d) [
24].