The Hydroloysis of ammonia borane by using Amberlyst-15 supported catalysts for hydrogen generation

Resin catalysts have the advantage of having various properties and long lifetime due to their ability to be regenerated easily, which makes them attractive supports. In this paper, a comparative study was conducted to optimize the dehydrogenation reaction condition using two different types of support materials: alumina (Al2O3), and Amberlyst-15 and to improve the catalytic activity as well as preparing an efficient and low-cost system for practical application, ruthenium metal catalyst was incorporated on Amberlyst-15 resin (a sulfonic acid type based upon a styrene-divinylbenzene copolymer) to release H2 via hydrolytic dehydrogenation of ammonia borane. Using ruthenium (Ru) catalysts based on Amberlyst-15 support material and comparing the results with Al2O3 as the common supporting material is considered to be studied for the first time. The effect of temperature (20-50 °C), the initial ammonia borane concentration (0.05-0.5 %wt), and catalyst amount (0.2-0.5 g) on the produced H2 yield was also investigated. Ru@Amberlyst-15 nanoparticle was discovered to be an effective catalyst for hydrogen evolution via the hydrolysis of ammonia borane with a turnover frequency value (TOF) of 343.3 min−1, while Ru@Al2O3 yielded a TOF of 87.5 min−1 at the room temperature. Therefore, it can be concluded that the Amberlyst-15 supporting effect on ruthenium metal leads an increase in the hydrogen production rate.