Self-supporting NiCoP for hydrogen generation via hydrolysis of ammonia borane

Ammonia borane (NH3BH3) is being widely used as a hydrogen (H2) storage material. Hydrogen storage content of NH3BH3 is suitable to produce H2 at room temperature in the presence of an efficient catalyst. Herein, cobalt doped nickel phosphide catalyst is developed to improve NH3BH3 hydrolysis by two steps. In first step, cobalt doped nickel hydroxide nanosheets are developed on the surface of nickel foam (NF) by immersing the NF in different concentrations of cobalt nitrate solution. In second step, self-supported cobalt doped nickel phosphide on NF is prepared by phosphidation at 300 °C. The partial positive charge of Ni and partial negative charge of P produce the charged polarization at the surface of NF. The catalyst optimization shows that 4-NiCoP/NF (0.01 M concentration of cobalt nitrate solution) produces the highest H2 production among all prepared samples. Same procedure is adopted to produce FeNiP/NF to determine the authenticity of the method. The reaction kinetics are calculated for both 4-NiCoP/NF and 4-FeNiP/NF best catalysts. The energy of activations 58.95 kJ·mol−1 for NiCoP/NF and 60.26 kJ·mol−1 NiFeP/NF are calculated via Arrhenius Equation. High activation energy of NiFeP/NF reveals that NiCoP/NF is better for H2 production. The on/off characteristics of the catalyst is unique for H2 evolution.