Catalytic Hydrogen Evolution of NaBH4 Hydrolysis by Cobalt Nanoparticles Supported on Bagasse-Derived Porous Carbon

Yiting Bu; Jiaxi Liu; Hailiang Chu; Sheng Wei; Qingqing Yin; Li Kang; Xiaoshuang Luo; Lixian Sun; Fen Xu; Pengru Huang; Federico Rosei; Aleskey A Pimerzin; Hans Juergen Seifert; Yong Du; Jianchuan Wang

doi:10.3390/nano11123259

Catalytic Hydrogen Evolution of NaBH₄ Hydrolysis by Cobalt Nanoparticles Supported on Bagasse-Derived Porous Carbon

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2021 Nov 30;11(12):3259. doi: 10.3390/nano11123259.

Authors

Yiting Bu^{1

2}, Jiaxi Liu¹, Hailiang Chu¹, Sheng Wei^{1

2}, Qingqing Yin¹, Li Kang¹, Xiaoshuang Luo¹, Lixian Sun^{1

2}, Fen Xu¹, Pengru Huang^{1

3}, Federico Rosei⁴, Aleskey A Pimerzin⁵, Hans Juergen Seifert⁶, Yong Du⁷, Jianchuan Wang⁷

Affiliations

¹ Guangxi Key Laboratory of Information Materials and Guangxi Collaborative Innovation Center of Structure and Property for New Energy and Materials, School of Material Science & Engineering, Guilin University of Electronic Technology, Guilin 541004, China.
² School of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering, Guilin University of Electronic Technology, Guilin 541004, China.
³ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117575, Singapore.
⁴ Centre for Energy, Materials and Telecommunications, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1650 Boulevard Lionel-Boulet Varennes, Québec, QC J3X 1S2, Canada.
⁵ Chemical Department, Samara State Technical University, 443100 Samara, Russia.
⁶ Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute for Applied Materials-Applied Materials Physics, Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1, 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China.

Abstract

As a promising hydrogen storage material, sodium borohydride (NaBH₄) exhibits superior stability in alkaline solutions and delivers 10.8 wt.% theoretical hydrogen storage capacity. Nevertheless, its hydrolysis reaction at room temperature must be activated and accelerated by adding an effective catalyst. In this study, we synthesize Co nanoparticles supported on bagasse-derived porous carbon (Co@xPC) for catalytic hydrolytic dehydrogenation of NaBH₄. According to the experimental results, Co nanoparticles with uniform particle size and high dispersion are successfully supported on porous carbon to achieve a Co@150PC catalyst. It exhibits particularly high activity of hydrogen generation with the optimal hydrogen production rate of 11086.4 mL_H2∙min^-1∙g_Co^-1 and low activation energy (E_a) of 31.25 kJ mol^-1. The calculation results based on density functional theory (DFT) indicate that the Co@xPC structure is conducive to the dissociation of [BH₄]^-, which effectively enhances the hydrolysis efficiency of NaBH₄. Moreover, Co@150PC presents an excellent durability, retaining 72.0% of the initial catalyst activity after 15 cycling tests. Moreover, we also explored the degradation mechanism of catalyst performance.

Keywords: Co nanoparticles; durability; hydrolysis; porous carbon; sodium borohydride.