Pt@Ni2P/C3N4 for charge acceleration to promote hydrogen evolution from ammonia-borane

Incorporating g-C3N4 with transition metal phosphides is emerging as a low-cost and robust co-catalyst for hydrogen evolution. The ammonia borane hydrolysis is an efficient method to release H2 at ambient conditions in the presence of a catalyst. An efficient and cheap catalyst is needed for practical application to achieve this benchmark. For this purpose, a catalyst Ni2P/C3N4 is synthesized by hydrothermal method and low-temperature phosphidation. The optimization reveals that the Ni2P/C3N4 with 6.5% Ni contents shows the best performance for H2 release. Furthermore, 2% Pt nanoparticles loading over Ni2P/C3N4 boosts the charge transfer and improves activity 5.7-fold compared to Ni2P/C3N4, and the Pt-loaded catalyst is depicted as Pt@Ni2P/C3N4. The reaction kinetics reveals that the hydrogen evolution rate accelerates by increasing the amount of Pt@Ni2P/C3N4 and AB concentration, and the loading of Pt nanoparticles loaded over Ni2P/C3N4 reduces the activation energy significantly. Moreover, the ionic interaction between Pt and Ni2P/C3N4 generates Ptᵟ+ and (Ni2P/C3N4)ᵟ− active sites which facilitates B–H cleavage and O–H bonds of ammonia borane and water, respectively. Incorporating transition metals phosphide and noble metals supported over g-C3N4 paves the pathway toward the efficient H2 evolution from ammonia borane, bringing cost-effective modifications to synthesize constructive catalysts.