Hydrolysis of sodium borohydride using Ru–Co-PEDOT nanocomposites as catalyst

• Ru–Co nanocluster synthesis.
• Incorporation of Ru–Co in PEDOT/PSS.
• Ru–Co-PEDOT uses as catalyst in hydrolysis of NaBH4 to get rapid hydrogen.
• PEDOT goes to solution phase and Ru–Co act as free heterogeneous nanocatalyst.
• Reuses several times with high TC% effectively.

It is well established that sodium borohydride, (NaBH4) is one of the most safe and attractive hydrogen-storage materials for H2 production. In this work, we have reported a zero valent Ruthenium–Cobalt (Ru–Co) based nanocluster incorporated conducting PEDOT/PSS nanocomposite as the catalyst for rapid hydrogen production from NaBH4. Initially, Ru–Co nanocluster was synthesized by reduction of a mixture of Ruthenium(III) chloride and Cobalt(II) chloride using sodium borohydride solution. Although the Ru–Co itself showed good synergistic catalytic effect as compared to bare Ru and Co nanoparticles, but their performance was found to be exceptionally good when incorporated into the conducting polymer (PEDOT/PSS). The obtained catalyst was characterized by TEM, EDX, XRD, four-probe conductivity measurements, etc. The hydrolysis kinetics showed that the 85 wt% NaBH4 + 15 wt% Ru–Co PEDOT/PSS nanocomposite sample in 1 M NaOH yielded best result among all other combinations. A hydrogen generation rate of 40.1 L min−1 g−1 at 25 °C was achieved, which makes it a noteworthy result as compared to other catalysts reported earlier.