Semi-continuous regime for continuous hydrogen production from sodium borohydride methanolytic dehydrogenation

Abstract

With the objective of continuous H2 production from sodium borohydride (NaBH4), methanolytic dehydrogenation has been studied and semi-continuous regimes were evaluated for making H2 production continuous. Batch catalytic hydrogen generation profiles, with kinetic evaluation at different temperatures, were examined. The batch production experiments showed that H2 production at 40 °C reached almost 100% conversion of NaBH4 after 6.5 and 6.1 min for Co-O and Co-O-B catalyzed reactions, respectively. In addition to this, a figure of merit (FOM) was performed for a comparative analysis of the catalysts’ performance.The semi-continuous regime was achieved by the sequential feeding of NaBH4 into the reactor, with continuous and stable hydrogen production. It resulted in continuous H2 production of 0.94 Lh−1 for almost 2.6 h from Co-O-B catalyzed methanolytic dehydrogenation of NaBH4.