Synergistic catalytic hydrolysis of ammonia borane to release hydrogen over AgCo@CN

Abstract

Ag-based materials have features of low-cost and abundance in comparison with Pt-group metals, while their catalytic performance for hydrogen release from ammonia borane (AB) hydrolysis is relatively low. Herein, we report an activity improvement in hydrogen evolution from catalytic AB hydrolysis over a zeolitic imidazolate framework-67-derived Co@CN anchored Ag nanoparticle (NP) catalyst. Attributed to the rich N-dopant and spatial confinement of the Co@CN, small Ag NPs are uniformly distributed on the support (AgCo@CN). The obtained AgCo@CN exhibits excellent catalytic activity with a high turnover frequency of 282.8 min⁻¹ for AB hydrolysis, outperforming most of the reported Ag-based catalysts and comparable to many Pt-group metal catalysts. The well-distributed Ag NPs with small sizes and the synergistic effect between Ag and Co@CN facilitate the oxidative cleavage of O–H in H₂O molecules and thereby contribute to the boosted catalytic activity of AgCo@CN for AB hydrolysis. This strategy can be extended to synthesize other supported metal NPs with high efficiency for catalytic utilization.