Preparation and characterization of fishbone-like Co-B nanoparticles with high catalytic activity for hydrogen generation from NaBH4 solution

We demonstrate a facile preparation of fishbone-like Co-B nanoparticles via electroless plating method for the first time, as evidenced by XRD, SEM and AFM results. The catalytic activities of the obtained fishbone-like Co-B nanoparticles have been investigated for hydrogen generation from NaBH4 solution. The results reveal that the fishbone-like Co-B nanoparticles exhibit high catalytic activity during hydrolytic dehydrogenation of NaBH4. The hydrogen release rate and the activation energy are 10089.1 mL min−1 g−1 and 34.2 kJ mol−1, respectively. More importantly, the fishbone-like Co-B nanoparticles have retained about 84.0% catalytic activity of its first activity after 5 cycles, which illustrates that the Co-B catalysts composed of fishbone-like catalysts show much improved reusability contrast to those common Co-B catalysts reported in the literature.