Sodium borohydride as a fuel for the future

In a time of unprecedented change in environmental, geopolitical and socio-economic world affairs, the search for new energy materials has become a topic of great relevance. Sodium borohydride, NaBH4, seems to be a promising fuel in the context of the future hydrogen economy. NaBH4 belongs to a class of materials with the highest gravimetric hydrogen densities, which has been discovered in the 1940s by Schlesinger and Brown. In the present paper, the most relevant issues concerning the use of NaBH4 are examined. Its basic properties are summarised and its synthesis methods are described. The general processes of NaBH4 oxidation, hydrolysis, and monitoring are reviewed. A comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the NaBH4 publications in the energy field opens the discussion for current perspectives and future outlook of NaBH4 as an efficient energy/hydrogen carrier. Despite the observed exponential increase in the research on NaBH4 it is clear that further efforts are still necessary for achieving significant overchanges. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.