Novel Ni-Co-B hollow nanospheres promote hydrogen generation from the hydrolysis of sodium borohydride

Hollow Ni-Co-B catalysts have been synthesized via a galvanic replacement method using a Co-B nanocomposite and a NiCl2 solution as the template and additional reagent, respectively. The Ni-Co-B hollow nanospheres synthesized for 60 min (Ni-Co-B-60) showed the best catalytic activity at 303 K, with a hydrogen production rate of 6400 mLhydrogenmin−1gcatalyst−1 and activation energy for the NaBH4 hydrolysis reaction of 33.1 kJ/mol. It was observed that the high catalytic activity could be attributed to both the hollow structure result of high surface area and electronic effect.134