RuCuCo nanoparticles supported on MIL-101 as a novel highly efficient catalysts for the hydrolysis of ammonia borane

•The RuCuCo@MIL-101 catalyst was synthesized by a simple liquid impregnation method.•The RuCuCo@MIL-101 exhibit an outstanding catalytic activity for the hydrolysis of AB.•The TOF value of the catalytic reaction is 241.2 mol H2 min−1 (mol Ru)−1 and the activation energy (Ea) is determined to be 48 kJ/mol.•The RuCuCo@MIL-101 catalyst is a promising candidate to be employed in developing AB as a highly efficient hydrogen storage system.

The catalysts containing Ru, CuCo and trimetallic RuCuCo nanoparticles were successfully synthesized by in-situ reduction of Ru, Cu and Co salts into the highly porous and hydrothermally stable metal–organic framework MIL-101 via a simple liquid impregnation method, and then characterized the structure, size, composition and specific area of the catalysts with different metal nanoparticles loading by XRD, TEM, EDX, ICP-AES, XPS and BET techniques. Their catalytic activities had been examined in ammonia borane hydrolysis to generate hydrogen gas. The result shows that the as-synthesized RuCuCo@MIL-101 exhibits a higher catalytic activity than those of monometallic Ru and bimetallic CuCo counterparts loadings, owing to the strong trimetallic synergistic effects, uniform distribution of nanoparticles as well as bi-functional effects between RuCuCo nanoparticles and the host of MIL-101, with the turn over frequency (TOF) value of 241.2 mol H2 min−1 (mol Ru)−1 and the activation energy (Ea) is determined to be 48 kJ/mol. Moreover, this catalyst exhibits satisfied durability after five cycles for the hydrolytic dehydrogenation of ammonia borane.

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