Ruthenium nanoparticles supported over carbon thin film catalyst synthesized by pulsed laser deposition for hydrogen production from ammonia borane

• Carbon thin film having very high surface area is synthesized by using pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique.
• Ru nanoparticles, produced by PLD, were supported on these carbon films.
• Ru/C catalyst is used for hydrolysis of AB, giving high H2 generation yield.
• Morphological features of the new catalyst are responsible for this high activity.
• Ru/C thin film catalyst can be reused and it may work as an ON/OFF switch for H2 production.

Ruthenium nanoparticles (NPs) supported over carbon thin films (Ru/C thin films) catalysts were synthesized by pulsed laser deposition and used as catalysts for hydrolysis of ammonia borane (AB). Highly irregular and porous carbon films with high surface area were deposited by varying Ar gas pressures during the deposition. By taking the advantage of phase explosion phenomena, occurring at high laser fluence, the surface of the carbon films were decorated with crystalline Ru NPs with size below ∼10 nm. Ru/C thin film catalyst produced H2 with 6 times higher H2 generation rate as compared to unsupported Ru NPs assembled film, and with a high turnover frequency value of 70.5 mol H2 mol−1 Ru min−1. A combination of morphological features and high content of sp2 bonded C atoms provides good dispersion of Ru NPs over a large surface area. Both these features contribute in generating large number of active sites leading to the increase in catalytic efficiency. A possibility of using the present form of catalyst as an ON/OFF switch for H2 production was also tested. Although the catalytic activity decreased with the number of hydrolysis cycles, Ru/C thin film catalyst was able to generate the expected amount of H2 gas in each cycle when it was reused several times. The observed low activation energy (∼28 kJ mol−1) and high H2 generation rate (15.5 L H2 min−1 g−1 of Ru) by hydrolysis of AB suggest that Ru/C thin film catalyst is highly efficient.

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