Hydrogen Production by Catalytic Hydrolysis of Sodium Borohydride with a Bimetallic Solid-State Co-Fe Complex Catalyst

Abstract

The addition of the active non-noble metal species on a ligand can influence the catalytic performance of catalyst. In the present work, a new bi-metallic solid-state complex catalyst system, including 4-4’-methylene bis(2,6-diethyl) aniline-3,5-di-tert-butylsalisilaldimin ligand and Fe and Co metal salts are prepared for hydrogen generation by catalytic hydrolysis of NaBH4. It was found that the Co/Fe mixture ratio, temperature, NaBH4, and NaOH concentrations, all exert considerable influence on the catalytic effectiveness of Co–Fe complex catalyst towards the hydrolysis reaction of NaBH4. The results suggested that the optimal mixture percentage of Co–Fe complex catalyst is 80:20. The obtained complex catalysts are characterized by XRD, FT-IR, and SEM techniques.