Ketjen Black supported monodisperse nickel–platinum alloy nanoparticles for the efficient catalyst in the hydrolytic dehydrogenation of ammonia borane

Abstract

In this study, we research the efficiency of the catalysis of Ketjen Black (KB) assembled monodisperse NiPt alloy nanoparticles (NPs) in the hydrolytic dehydrogenation of ammonia borane (AB). Monodisperse NiPt alloy NPs were synthesized by the coreduction of nickel(II) acetate and platinum(II) acetylacetonate with borane tert‐butylamine under gentle conditions. As synthesized NiPt alloy NPs were supported on the KB, reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and mesoporous graphitic carbon nitride (mpg‐C3N4) by liquid‐phase self‐assembly method. The characterization of the presented nanocatalyst was carried out by X‐ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectroscopy (ICP‐MS), and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) techniques. The catalytic activity of three different supported NiPt alloy NPs was used in the hydrolysis of AB. Among the tested nanocatalysts, KB‐supported NiPt NPs showed high activity and durability in the hydrolytic dehydrogenation of AB. The modified recipe organized to control the composition of NiPt NPs and Ni70Pt30 NPs showed the best catalytic activity with the turnover frequency (TOF) of 1479 min−1. We report the detailed kinetics of KB‐NiPt nanocatalyst depending on AB concentration, catalyst amount, temperature, and reusability. The activation energy of catalytic hydrolysis of AB was calculated to be 25.4 kJ mol−1.