Ammonia-borane (AB) is a promising chemical hydrogen-storage material. However, the development of real-time, efficient, controllable, and safe methods for hydrogen release under mild conditions is a challenge in the large-scale use of hydrogen as a long-term solution for future energy security. A new class of low-cost catalytic system is presented that uses nanostructured Ni2 P as catalyst, which exhibits excellent catalytic activity and high sustainability toward hydrolysis of ammonia-borane with the initial turnover frequency of 40.4 mol(H2) mol(Ni2P) (-1) min(-1) under air atmosphere and at ambient temperature. This value is higher than those reported for noble-metal-free catalysts, and the obtained Arrhenius activation energy (Ea =44.6 kJ mol(-1) ) for the hydrolysis reaction is comparable to Ru-based bimetallic catalysts. A clearly mechanistic analysis of the hydrolytic reaction of AB based on experimental results and a density functional theory calculation is presented.
Ternary Ni–Co–P nanoparticles with optimized electronic structures strongly interact with ammonia-borane, resulting in the marked improvement of catalytic activity.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.