Fast hydrogen release under moderate conditions from NaBH4 destabilized by fluorographite†
Abstract
A simple approach to dramatically enhance the dehydrogenation properties of sodium borohydride is achieved by ball milling NaBH4 with fluorographite (FGi). It was found that the ball-milled NaBH4–FGi composite starts to release hydrogen without impurity gas at a lower temperature of 125 °C, and obtains a hydrogen desorption capacity of ca. 4.8 wt% below 130 °C in seconds, which is improved markedly compared to the ball-milled pristine NaBH4. The significant thermodynamic and kinetic improvement of the NaBH4–FGi composite can be ascribed to the reaction between NaBH4 and FGi as well as the formation of micro-scale NaBH4. Moreover, since the dehydrogenation process of NaBH4–FGi composite is exothermal, the fully reverse reaction is not feasible. In-depth investigations show that the partial rehydrogenation is due to the formation of Na2B12H12 and another new borohydride.