Construction of anchoring traps-reinforced ultrafine ruthenium nanoparticles as efficient catalysts for boosting H2 production from ammonia-borane hydrolysis

Abstract

Hydrogen release through ammonia-borane hydrolysis (ABH) is vital for mitigating the energy crises and environmental problems from fossil fuels. However, improving the catalytic performance for ABH via concomitantly regulating the atom utilization efficiency and electronic metal-support interaction of supported catalysts remains challenging. Herein, anchoring traps-reinforced nano-ruthenium integrated hollow N-doped carbon spheres (Ru@HNCS) are synthesized and utilized for ABH toward hydrogen production. The synergy of void trapping and N-anchoring effects enables the fabrication and uniform distribution of ultrafine Ru (1.47 nm in diameter) nanoparticles (NPs) onto the HNCS matrix. Compared with the Ru@C analogue, the achieved Ru@HNCS exhibits much higher catalytic activity (turnover frequency: 1051 min−1), lower activation energy (26.9 kJ mol−1) and higher reusability toward hydrogen production from ABH. The high atomic utilization efficiency of metal species and electronic metal-support interaction can effectively accelerate the oxidative cleavage of the H–O bonds in the attacked H2O, thus kinetically boosting catalytic performance for ABH. The present study represents a useful strategy to fabricate efficient supported nanocatalysts for catalytic applications.