Pt@Ni2P/C3N4 for charge acceleration to promote hydrogen evolution from ammonia-borane

Incorporating g-C 3 N 4 with transition metal phosphides is emerging as a low-cost and robust co-catalyst for hydrogen evolution . The ammonia borane hydrolysis is an efficient method to release H 2 at ambient conditions in the presence of a catalyst. An efficient and cheap catalyst is needed for practical application to achieve this benchmark. For this purpose, a catalyst Ni 2 P/C 3 N 4 is synthesized by hydrothermal method and low-temperature phosphidation. The optimization reveals that the Ni 2 P/C 3 N 4 with 6.5% Ni contents shows the best performance for H 2 release. Furthermore, 2% Pt nanoparticles loading over Ni 2 P/C 3 N 4 boosts the charge transfer and improves activity 5.7-fold compared to Ni 2 P/C 3 N 4 , and the Pt-loaded catalyst is depicted as Pt@Ni 2 P/C 3 N 4 . The reaction kinetics reveals that the hydrogen evolution rate accelerates by increasing the amount of Pt@Ni 2 P/C 3 N 4 and AB concentration, and the loading of Pt nanoparticles loaded over Ni 2 P/C 3 N 4 reduces the activation energy significantly. Moreover, the ionic interaction between Pt and Ni 2 P/C 3 N 4 generates Ptᵟ + and (Ni 2 P/C 3 N 4 )ᵟ − active sites which facilitates B–H cleavage and O–H bonds of ammonia borane and water, respectively. Incorporating transition metals phosphide and noble metals supported over g-C 3 N 4 paves the pathway toward the efficient H 2 evolution from ammonia borane, bringing cost-effective modifications to synthesize constructive catalysts.