Hydrogen production from hydrolysis of NaBH 4 solution over Co–Fe–B@g‐C 3 N 4 /NF thin film catalyst

Abstract In this study, the double loaded Co–Fe–B@g‐C 3 N 4 /NF (NF: Ni foam) thin film catalysts were prepared for the first time via chemical deposition method at room temperature. By optimizing the reducing agent concentration to 0.9 mol·L −1 , the as‐obtained Co–Fe–B@g‐C 3 N 4 /NF exhibited the twisted ribbon structure with more distinct three‐dimensional hierarchy and the smaller particle size, showing the good catalytic property for the hydrolysis of NaBH 4 solution. The H 2 generation rate of Co–Fe–B@g‐C 3 N 4 /NF and binary Co–B@g‐C 3 N 4 /NF under visible light irradiation surpassed the value under natural condition. The apparent activation energy of Co–Fe–B@g‐C 3 N 4 /NF (45.0 kJ·mol −1 ) under visible light irradiation was obviously reduced when compared with the natural condition (48.4 kJ·mol −1 ) and binary Co–B@g‐C 3 N 4 /NF (60.6 kJ·mol −1 ) under visible light irradiation. Furthermore, the catalytic performance of the optimized Co–Fe–B@g‐C 3 N 4 /NF thin film catalyst was superior to most of the reported non‐noble metal and even noble metal catalysts. Hence, it illustrated that the catalytic H 2 production performance of Co–Fe–B@g‐C 3 N 4 /NF thin film was distinctly improved after the introduction of light and multicomponent recombination.