Enhanced catalytic activity of NiM (M = Cr, Mo, W) nanoparticles for hydrogen evolution from ammonia borane and hydrazine borane

In this work, a series of Ni 1-x M x (M = Cr, Mo, W) nanoparticles (NPs) have been successfully synthesized via a simple surfactant-aided co-reduction method and employed as highly efficient and cost effective catalysts for hydrogen generation from aqueous solution of ammonia borane (NH 3 BH 3 , AB) at room temperature . It is found that the as-synthesized NiM NPs (M = Cr, Mo, W) exhibit much higher catalytic performance for the hydrolysis of AB as compared to that of pure Ni NPs. In addition, among all the Ni 1-x M x (M = Cr, Mo, W) NPs, the Ni 0.9 Cr 0.1 , Ni 0.9 Mo 0.1 , and Ni 0.8 W 0.2 NPs show the highest catalytic activities with the turnover frequency (TOF) values of 10.7, 27.3 and 25.0 mol H 2 (mol metal min) −1 , respectively. Remarkably, these optimized NiM catalysts can also perform efficiently in the hydrolysis of hydrazine borane (N 2 H 4 BH 3 , HB). The present low-cost and high-performance of the NiM catalysts system may encourage the practical application of AB and HB as the promising chemical hydrogen storage materials .