Anchoring And Space-Confinement Effects To Synthesize Ultrasmall Pd Nanoparticles For Efficient Ammonia Borane Hydrolysis

Hydrogen production from ammonia borane (AB) hydrolysis catalyzed by efficient heterogenous catalysts is regarded as a compelling strategy to meet the increasing requirement for clean energy. Palladium (Pd) nanoparticle (NP)-based catalysts have stimulated intensive attention for AB hydrolysis, while their catalytic performances still need to be significantly improved. By exploiting sodium hydroxide and three-dimensional (3D) architecture of interconnected porous carbon nanosheets (IPCNs) as a NP carrier, a simple yet efficient strategy is developed to synthesize uniformly distributed ligand-free Pd NPs (2.17 nm in diameter) for hydrogen generation from AB hydrolysis. The particle size and spatial dispersion control of Pd NPs on the IPCNs surface supply an abundance of surface-active sites and thus remarkable improve the catalytic performance for AB hydrolysis to hydrogen evolution. Specifically, the achieved Pd/IPCNs reveals an extremely high catalytic activity with a turnover frequency (TOF) of 122.8 min(-1) toward AB hydrolysis, which is higher than that of many reported Pd-based catalysts. This simple, straightforward and efficient method is of significant importance for preparing metal NP catalysts with high catalytic activities for catalytic applications. (C) 2020 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.