Hydrogen generation from the hydrolysis of ammonia-borane using intrazeolite cobalt(0) nanoclusters catalyst

Previously being used as highly active catalyst in the hydrolysis of sodium borohydride, intrazeolite cobalt(0) nanoclusters were also employed as catalyst in the hydrolysis of ammonia-borane (H3NBH3). Intrazeolite cobalt(0) nanoclusters were found to be active catalyst in this hydrolysis reaction of ammonia-borane providing 5450 total turnovers at room temperature before deactivation. The results of the kinetic study shows that the catalytic hydrolysis of AB is first order with respect to the catalyst concentration and zero order with respect to substrate concentration. Activation parameters could be obtained from the evaluation of the rate constants at different temperature. The results reveal that intrazeolite cobalt(0) nanoclusters can be considered as promising candidate to be used as catalyst in developing highly efficient portable hydrogen generation systems using ammonia-borane as solid hydrogen storage material. (C) 2010 Professor T. Nejat Veziroglu. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.