An one-step approach towards hydrogen production and storage through regeneration of NaBH4

The hydrolysis of NaBH 4 offers significant advantages for hydrogen storage in fuel cells, whereby suffers from the irreversibility . Thus, a simple and low cost method for NaBH 4 regeneration from its hydrolysis byproduct is crucial. Herein, we describe a single step method for NaBH 4 regeneration, which combines both hydrogen production and storage in the one step. In the process, a mixture of magnesium silicide and dihydrate sodium metaborate is reacted via ball milling under ambient conditions without the requirements of additional hydrogen sources . The hydrogen only comes from the splitting of H 2 O in the NaBO 2 ·2H 2 O that is a direct byproduct of NaBH 4 hydrolysis. The purified product demonstrates the same physicochemical properties as commercial NaBH 4 . Yields for NaBH 4 regeneration approaching 80% are achieved using this method. Mechanism study indicates that the high yield is likely to be beneficial from the formation of the Mg-O-Si-H conjugated structure. NaBH 4 regeneration using this process demonstrates a 30-fold reduction in cost over a previous study that used MgH 2 as the reduction agent.