Catalytic hydrolysis of ammonia borane via magnetically recyclable copper iron nanoparticles for chemical hydrogen storage

In this work, a series of new Cu1−xFex alloy nanoparticles (NPs) have been successfully in situ synthesized by a very simple method and used as catalysts for hydrogen generation from the aqueous solution of ammonia borane (AB) under ambient atmosphere at room temperature. The prepared nanoalloys exhibit excellent catalytic activity, especially for Cu0.33Fe0.67 sample outperform the activity of monometallic counterparts, and even of Cu@Fe core–shell NPs. By using an external magnet, these catalysts can be readily separated from the solution for recycle purpose, and can keep the high activity even after 8 times of recycle under ambient atmosphere. The hydrolysis activation energy for the Cu0.33Fe0.67 alloy NPs was measured to be approximately 43.2 kJ/mol, which is lower than most of the reported activation energy values for the same reaction using many different catalysts except for some noble-metal containing catalysts, indicating the superior catalytic performance of Cu0.33Fe0.67 nanocatalysts.

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► New Cu1−xFex nanoalloys are in situ synthesized and used as catalyst for hydrolysis of AB.
► Cu0.33Fe0.67 exhibit superior catalytic activity than single metals and Cu@Fe core–shell NPs.
► These catalysts can be readily separated by an external magnet and show good recycle stability.
► The measured activation energy 43.2 kJ/mol is lower than most of the reported values.