The excessive use of nitrate in agriculture and industry poses a significant threat to human health and ecosystems. To effectively manage the nitrogen cycle (N-cycle) in nature and to deal with nitrate pollution in wastewater, various electrochemical approaches have been developed to convert nitrate into N-products. Recent research works have focused their efforts on electrochemical nitrate reduction (eNO₃R) to ammonia (NH₃) as “an alternative approach to the Haber–Bosch process” while reducing the environmental impacts. However, when considering challenges due to the low concentration of nitrate in wastes and difficulties in extracting as-synthesized NH₃ and comparing this scale with the scale of current NH₃ and nitrate production, such an eNO₃R to NH₃ approach at the largest possible scale, even without examining its economic viability and overall environmental implications, will have an insignificant impact. Therefore, we recommend that rational implementation approaches for nitrate treatment should involve converting nitrate ions at low concentrations into nitrogen (N₂) gas or recycling them at high concentrations to produce other nitrate chemicals or fertilizers.

中文翻译：

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重新思考硝酸盐还原：将电化学工作从氨转向氮，以实现现实的环境影响

农业和工业中过量使用硝酸盐对人类健康和生态系统构成重大威胁。为了有效管理自然界的氮循环（N-循环）并处理废水中的硝酸盐污染，人们开发了各种电化学方法将硝酸盐转化为氮产品。最近的研究工作重点关注电化学硝酸盐还原（eNO ₃ R）生成氨（NH ₃）作为“哈伯-博世过程的替代方法”，同时减少对环境的影响。然而，当考虑到废物中硝酸盐浓度低以及提取合成NH _{3的困难所带来的挑战，并将这一规模与当前NH 3}和硝酸盐生产的规模进行比较时，这种eNO ₃ R to NH ₃方法最大即使不审查其经济可行性和总体环境影响，可能的规模也不会产生重大影响。因此，我们建议合理的硝酸盐处理实施方法应包括将低浓度的硝酸根离子转化为氮气（N ₂）气或将高浓度的硝酸盐离子回收以生产其他硝酸盐化学品或肥料。