Alkaline ultrasonic irradiation-mediated boosted H2 production over O/N-rich porous carbon anchored Ru nanoclusters

Developing efficient catalytic systems to boost hydrogen evolution from hydrolytic dehydrogenation of ammonia borane (AB) is of broad interest but remains a formidable challenge since the widespread usages of hydrogen have been considered as sustainable solutions to ensure future energy security. Herein, we developed an alkaline ultrasonic irradiation-mediated catalytic system with O/N-rich porous carbon supported Ru nanoclusters (NCs) (Ru/ONPC) to considerably boost the catalytic activity for hydrogen production from the hydrolytic dehydrogenation of AB. The uniformly distributed sub-2.0 nm Ru NCs on the ONPC were demonstrated to be efficient catalysts to boost hydrogen generation from the hydrolytic dehydrogenation of AB with the synergistic effect between ultrasonic irradiation and alkaline additive without any additional heating. An ultrahigh turnover frequency (TOF) of 4004 min-1 was achieved in the developed catalytic system, which was significantly higher than that of ultrasound-mediated AB hydrolysis without alkali (TOF: 485 min-1) and alkaline AB hydrolysis (TOF: 1747 min-1) without ultrasound mixing. The alkaline ultrasonic irradiation was beneficial for the cleavage of the OH bonds in the attacked H2O molecules catalyzed by the Ru/ONPC and thus considerably boost the catalytic hydrogen generation from AB. This study provides a tractable and ecofriendly pathway to promote the activity toward AB hydrolysis to release hydrogen.