Production of NaBH4 and hydrogen release with catalyst

The purpose of this study was to investigate the production of NaBH4 as hydrogen storage material and testing its hydrogen storage capacity in presence of catalyst. Synthesis of NaBH4 was investigated with NaH and trimethyl borate which was also produced in previous studies. Different reaction temperatures, times and reactant ratios constitute the three parameters of the production process. The best combination determined by FT-IR, XRF and XRD analyses, was found to be 1.413 (mol/mol) TMB over NaH at 250 °C for 90 min. In order to increase the NaBH4 purity ethylene diamine was used as solvent at 75 °C. After 4 extraction and crystallization processes 85.17% NaBH4 purity was obtained. Moreover, hydrogen content of the product NaBH4 was measured in a system with different catalysts since catalyst efficiency is important in decreasing the water dependence of dehydrogenation. CoCl2 catalyst proved best by taking out more hydrogen, both from the NaBH4 structure and from water.