Hydrolysis of sodium borohydride (NaBH 4 ) offers substantial applications in the production of hydrogen but requires an inexpensive catalyst. Herein, phosphorylated silica (SP-PA) is used as catalyst for the generation of hydrogen from NaBH 4 hydrolysis. The catalyst is prepared by sol-gel route synthesis by taking tetraethyl orthosilicate as the precursor of silica whereas phosphoric acid was served as the gelation and phosphorylating agent. The prepared catalyst is characterized by FT-IR spectroscopy, XRD, SEM and EDAX. The hydrogen generation rate at SP-PA particles (762.4 mL min − 1 g − 1) is higher than that of silica particles (133 mL min − 1 g − 1 of catalyst). The higher catalytic activity of SP-PA particles might be due to the acidic functionalities that enhances the hydrogen production rate. The kinetic parameters (activation energy and pre-exponential factor) are calculated from Arrhenius plot and the thermodynamic parameters (enthalpy, entropy and free energy change) are evaluated using Erying plot. The calculated activation energy for NaBH 4 hydrolysis at SP-PA catalyst is 29.92 kJ.mol − 1 suggesting the high catalytic activity of SP-PA particles. The obtained entropy of activation (ΔS ‡ = -97.75 JK − 1 ) suggested Langmuir Hinshelwood type associative mechanism for the hydrolysis of NaBH 4 at SP-PA particles.