Construction of cost-effective bimetallic nanoparticles on titanium carbides as a superb catalyst for promoting hydrolysis of ammonia borane

Abstract

Bimetallic cost-effective CoNi nanoparticles (NPs) are conveniently supported on titanium carbides (MXene) by a simple one-step wet-chemical method. The synthesized CoNi/MXene catalysts are characterized by XPS, TEM, STEM-HAADF and ICP-AES. The as-prepared CoNi NPs with a size of 2.8 nm are well dispersed on the MXene surface. It is found that among the CoNi bimetallic system, Co_0.7Ni_0.3 shows the best performance toward catalyzing ammonia borane (AB) decomposition with a turnover frequency value of 87.6 mol_H2 mol_cat⁻¹ min⁻¹ at 50 °C. The remarkable catalytic performance is attributed to the mild affiliation of MXene to NPs, which not only stabilizes NPs to maintain a good dispersion but also leaves sufficient surface active sites to facilitate the catalytic reaction.