The study of ammonia borane (AB) with controllable dehydrogenations is an active research topic for solid-state hydrogen storage materials. The present work shows that tuning the reactivity of both B-H and N-H bonds in AB by alkaline earth metal chlorides not only results in a significantly decrease in the onset dehydrogenation temperature to 40 degrees C but also suppresses undesirable volatile by-products due to the incorporation of alkaline earth metal chlorides in the AB dehydrogenation process. These results provide further insights into the promotion of hydrogen release from amidoboranes and related borohydride ammine complexes. Copyright (C) 2011, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.