Chemical Engineering Journal, Vol.264, 531-537, 2015
Hydrolysis of sodium borohydride using Ru-Co-PEDOT nanocomposites as catalyst
It is well established that sodium borohydride, (NaBH4) is one of the most safe and attractive hydrogen-storage materials for H-2 production. In this work, we have reported a zero valent Ruthenium-Cobalt (Ru-Co) based nanocluster incorporated conducting PEDOT/PSS nanocomposite as the catalyst for rapid hydrogen production from NaBH4. Initially, Ru-Co nanoduster was synthesized by reduction of a mixture of Ruthenium(III) chloride and Cobalt(II) chloride using sodium borohydride solution. Although the Ru-Co itself showed good synergistic catalytic effect as compared to bare Ru and Co nanoparticles, but their performance was found to be exceptionally good when incorporated into the conducting polymer (PEDOT/PSS). The obtained catalyst was characterized by TEM, EDX, XRD, four-probe conductivity measurements, etc. The hydrolysis kinetics showed that the 85 wt% NaBH4 + 15 wt% Ru-Co PEDOT/PSS nanocomposite sample in 1 M NaOH yielded best result among all other combinations. A hydrogen generation rate of 40.1 L min(-1) g(-1) at 25 degrees C was achieved, which makes it a noteworthy result as compared to other catalysts reported earlier. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.