Carbon-supported small Rh nanoparticles prepared with sodium citrate: Toward high catalytic activity for hydrogen evolution from ammonia borane hydrolysis

Hydrogen generation from the hydrolysis of ammonia borane (AB) over heterogeneous catalysts is essential for practical applications. Herein, efficient hydrogen evolution from AB hydrolysis over the carbon-supported Rh nanoparticles synthesized with sodium citrate (Rh/C-SC) was achieved at 25 °C. The turnover frequency value of Rh/C-SC was 336 mol H2 (molRh min)−1, whereas that of Rh/C catalyst only yielded a value of 134 mol H2 (molRh min)−1. The improvement of the catalytic performance of Rh/C-SC catalyst could be attributed to the small Rh particles with highly active surface areas, which were prepared by using sodium citrate as the stabilizing agent. This result indicates that sodium citrate can be applied as a useful stabilizing agent for synthesizing active metal nanoparticles, thus highly promoting the practical application of AB system for fuel cells.