LAUSR

Cobalt-boride(Co-B) is emerging as one of the promising materials in the base-hydrolytic dehydrogenation of ammonia-borane(AB). In order to avoid the low specific area and poor catalytic capacity of Co-B catalyst caused by aggregation arising from the strong reducing property and rapid reaction condensation of sodium borohydride(NaBH4), novel cobalt boride/cetyltrimethylammonium bromide(Co-B/CTAB) catalyst was obtained via solidstate grinding at room temperature, and the catalyst was further characterized by XRD, SEM, XPS and BET. The hydrogen generation rate(HGR) was then determined by the hydrolysis reaction of AB. The SEM images indicate that a lot of irregular folds and curled edges are formed on the sample with a maximum surface area of 145.57 m2/g, thus possibly resulting in the high hydrogen production(HGR was 10.68 L·min−1·g−1), which may be attributed to CTAB that provide favorable large specific surface area and abundant porous structure. Additionally, catalyst will not be affected by solvants during solid-state reaction. As a diluent, the surfactant CTAB hindered the reaction rate of sodium borohydride reduction to cobalt boride and obtained the novel catalyst with a large specific surface area.