Dehydrogenation of ammonia borane catalyzed by in situ synthesized Fe–Co nano-alloy in aqueous solution

In this paper, a series of Fe1−xCox alloys (x = 0, 0.3, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 1) is in situ synthesized by a chemical reduction method and used as catalysts for generating hydrogen from aqueous solution of ammonia borane (NH3BH3) at room temperature. XRD and TEM characterizations reveal that these Fe1−xCox nano-alloys are amorphous and ultrafine. The hydrogen generation measurements show that in situ synthesized Fe1−xCox alloys exhibit excellent catalytic properties. The hydrogen generation rate of Fe0.3Co0.7 alloy can reach to the maximum of 8945.5 ml min−1 g−1 at 293 K and the activation energy is only 16.30 kJ mol−1. Furthermore, the hydrolysis of NH3BH3 is completed within 1.8 min. The results are better than Fe, Co nano-particles and ex situ synthesized samples, which could be attributed to electron transfer from Fe to active Co sites, and improvement in the dispersion of the catalyst with Fe2O3.