Study on preparation and performance of Ru-Fe/GO catalyst for sodium borohydride alcoholysis to produce hydrogen

Ru-Fe bimetallic alloy nanoparticle catalyst (Ru-Fe/GO) was prepared by chemical reduction method on graphene oxide prepared using Hummers modified method. The structure and morphology of both GO and Ru-Fe/GO were analyzed using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).The effect of catalyst components on hydrogen generation rate for NaBH4 methanolysis was investigated. When Ru:Fe is 6:1, the catalytic activity is the highest, and the average rate is about 473 mL·min−1·g−1. The effect of temperature, Sodium hydroxide concentration, and sodium borohydride concentration on reaction rate is also discussed, and the activation energy for the methanolysis of sodium borohydride is 59.33 kJ·mol−1 based on the data.