Nickel-based bimetallic nanocatalysts in high-extent dehydrogenation of hydrazine borane

Abstract

Hydrazine borane N 2H 4BH 3 (HB) is a promising chemical hydrogen storage material but its development is highly dependent on the catalyst that will be used to dehydrogenate it, that is, to hydrolyze the BH 3 group and then to decompose selectively the N 2H 4 moiety into H 2 and N 2. Finding a reactive and selective catalyst is thus crucial. This is the topic of the present work, where we mainly focused on nickel-based bimetallic nanoparticles synthesized using a hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide-aided co-reduction method (sodium borohydride or ammonia borane as reducing agent). The second metal, in amounts from 0.03 to 0.23 mol%, was chosen to be ruthenium, rhodium, platinum and iridium. With the 49 nanocatalysts prepared, discrepant results were found; the mol number of H 2 + N 2 per mol of HB varied from 3.1 to 5.1. The best bimetallic systems were then characterized by XRD, TEM, and XPS. Our main results are reported and discussed herein. © 2012, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.