Ruthenium nanoparticles supported on nitrogen-doped porous carbon as a highly efficient catalyst for hydrogen evolution from ammonia borane

Abstract

As one of the cleanest energy sources of the future, hydrogen has been extensively studied, particularly its production and storage. In this work, we prepared a nitrogen-doped porous carbon material (NC-Fe) via the facile pyrolysis of a porous organic polymer (POP). The as-prepared NC-Fe material was then modified with small ruthenium nanoparticles (Ru NPs), obtaining a Ru/NC-Fe catalyst for efficient catalytic hydrogen generation from ammonia borane (AB). The prepared catalyst was characterized in detail by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), nitrogen absorption–desorption measurements and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The small Ru NPs were highly grafted on the surface of the NC-Fe support. In the catalytic hydrolysis of AB, the Ru/NC-Fe catalyst shows superior catalytic activity, with a high turnover frequency of 102.9 mol_H2 min⁻¹ mol_Ru⁻¹ and a low activation energy of 47.42 kJ mol⁻¹, compared with many other reported catalysts. This is mainly attributed to the highly dispersed Ru NPs on the NC-Fe surface, which provided abundant accessible active sites. Furthermore, the Ru/NC-Fe catalyst also exhibits excellent magnetic recyclability and can be reused for at least five cycles. Thus, this work provides a useful strategy for the fabrication of POP material-derived catalysts for various catalysis applications.