Hydrogen generation from the hydrolysis of sodium borohydride using TiO2 supported Ru nanocatalysts prepared by photocatalytic reduction

The worldwide application of hydrogen energy greatly promotes the development of NaBH 4 hydrolysis for hydrogen production, particularly the study of hydrolysis catalysts. In this work, an anatase TiO 2 -supported ruthenium nanocatalysts (i.e., Ru/TiO 2 ) was facilely prepared by photocatalytic reduction without the use of any chemical reducing reagents. The Ru catalysts had an average particle size of approximately 2.2[Formula: see text]nm and were uniformly distributed. The Ru/TiO 2 was characterized by HRTEM, EDS, XRD, XPS and ICP-AES, respectively, and evaluated by classical water-displacement method. Using a 5[Formula: see text]wt.% NaBH[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]wt.% NaOH solution, hydrogen generation (HG) rate was as high as 38.6[Formula: see text]L[Formula: see text]min[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]g[Formula: see text] at 30 ∘ C, and apparent activation energy was calculated to be 55.9[Formula: see text]kJ[Formula: see text]mol[Formula: see text]. Compared with similar Ru-based catalysts reported in literature, the Ru/TiO 2 prepared in this work shows higher catalytic activity and lower apparent activation energy. After recycling for five times, the HG rate remained to be 91.7% of the initial level.