Amorphous Ni-Co-B catalyst for hydrolysis of NaBH₄ in alkaline solution

Amorphous Ni-Co-B catalyst was synthesized by a chemical reduction method, and followed by a heat-treating at 100°C, then characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Brunauer-Emmetr-Teller (BET) analysis, and adopted to help accelerating hydrolysis reaction of NaBH₄ alkaline solution. It is proved that the amorphous Ni-Co-B catalyst is not a simple combination of elemental Ni, Co and B, but a multiplex metal boride. It exhibits an maximum hydrogen generation rate of 210 ml/min/(g catalyst) at 100% H₂ utilization, which is potentially to give a successive H2 supply for proton exchange membrane fuel cells.