Solar N₂ fixation under visible light offers a promising method toward sustainable NH₃ production at benign conditions. However, it still remains a formidable challenge to activate and cleave NN bonds and promote the separation and transport of electrons and holes during photocatalysis. To address these issues, the discovery and design of high-performance and robust photocatalysts is imperative. Here, we report the defect engineering of two-dimensional oxidized Sb nanosheets to activate intrinsically inactive Sb for efficient visible light-driven N₂ reduction to NH₃. Impressively, the Sb nanosheets rich in Sb and oxygen vacancies afford a remarkable NH₃ formation rate of up to 388.5 μg_NH3 h⁻¹ g_cat.⁻¹ without cocatalyst in visible light, 8 times higher than that for bulk Sb and also significantly outperforming many previously reported photocatalysts. The defective Sb nanosheets exhibit excellent stability after five successive reaction cycles. Further density functional theory calculations reveal a considerably strong interaction between N₂ and defects on the surface and edge of Sb nanosheets, which facilitates the formation of *NNH (N₂ + (H⁺ + e^-) → *NNH, where * denotes an adsorption site), thus promoting photocatalytic N₂ reduction. This finding opens a novel avenue to enhancing N₂ photofixation over inherently inactive surfaces by synergistically engineering defect sites.

在可见光下固定太阳能N ₂提供了一种在良性条件下可持续生产NH ₃的有前途的方法。然而，在光催化过程中激活和裂解N N键并促进电子和空穴的分离和传输仍然是一个艰巨的挑战。为了解决这些问题，必须开发和设计高性能且坚固的光催化剂。在这里，我们报告二维氧化Sb纳米片的缺陷工程，以激活本质上无活性的Sb，以有效地将可见光驱动的N ₂还原为NH ₃。令人印象深刻的是，富含Sb和氧空位的Sb纳米片提供了高达388.5μg的显着NH ₃形成速率_NH3 h ^-1 g_猫。^-1在可见光下没有助催化剂，比本体Sb的高出8倍，并且明显优于许多先前报道的光催化剂。有缺陷的Sb纳米片在五个连续的反应循环后表现出出色的稳定性。此外密度泛函理论计算揭示了N之间的相当强的相互作用₂ Sb的纳米片的表面和边缘，这有利于* NNH的形成上和缺陷（N ₂  +（H ⁺  +  ë ^-）→* NNH，其中，*表示的吸附位点），从而促进光催化N _2的还原。这一发现为增强N ₂开辟了一条新途径。 通过协同工程缺陷位点在固有无活性的表面上进行光固定。