Hydrogen generation from hydrolysis of NaBH4 based on high stable NiB/NiFe2O4 catalyst

Recently environment-friendly hydrogen generation for NaBH4 hydrolysis using improved method has attracted much attention. Here a novel catalyst NiB/NiFe2O4 was developed through an impregnation-chemical reduction method, which was utilized in hydrogen production from NaBH4 hydrolysis. In this study, NiFe2O4 ferrite supports were prepared via a combined EDTA-citric acid complexing method. NiFe2O4 ferrites were characterized in terms of phase structure and surface morphologies using X-ray diffractometer as well as scanning electron microscopes. It can be found that the particle size of NiFe2O4 calcined at 873 K is about 30-40 nm which exhibits an optimized spherical morphologies. The factors such as active metal loading amount, reaction temperature and recycling number on NiB/NiFe2O4 catalyst were investigated in detail. A hydrogen generation rate as high as 299.88 ml min(-1) g(-1) for NiB/NiFe2O4 catalyst can be achieved using 5wt.% NaBH4 solution at 298 K which is much higher than pure NiB. Moreover, an improved recycling stability can be obtained for supported NiB/NiFe2O4 catalyst. The 83.3% of initial catalytic activity can be retained for NiB/NiFe2O4 catalyst after the fifth run. The experimental results show that the usage of NiFe2O4 support can enhance the catalytic activity and recycling stability of NiB active metals. (C)2016 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.