Hydrogen bonding-mediated dehydrogenation in the ammonia borane combined graphene oxide systems

The dehydrogenation of ammonia borane (AB) adsorbed on three different graphene oxide (GO) sheets is investigated within the ab initio density functional theory. The energy barriers to direct combination the hydrogens of hydroxyl groups and the hydridic hydrogens of AB to release H2 are relatively high, indicating that the process is energetically unfavorable. Our theoretical study demonstrates that the dehydrogenation mechanism of the AB-GO systems has undergone two critical steps, first, there is the formation of the hydrogen bond (O-H-O) between two hydroxyl groups, and then, the hydrogen bond further react with the hydridic hydrogens of AB to release H2 with low reaction barriers.