Temperature-Induced Enhancement of Catalytic Performance in Selective Hydrogen Generation from Hydrous Hydrazine with Ni-Based Nanocatalysts for Chemical Hydrogen Storage

We demonstrate here that Ni nanoparticles, which are inactive for the decomposition of hydrous hydrazine at room temperature, can exhibit drastically enhanced catalytic performance with an increase in reaction temperature to 323 K. At this reaction temperature, complete conversion of hydrous hydrazine with 100% H-2 selectivity can be achieved by alloying Ni and Pt with a Pt content as low as 1 mol-%. This significant temperature effect coupled with the uniform alloy composition of Ni-Pt nanocatalysts results in the observed enhanced catalytic performance of the Ni-Pt nanocatalyst for hydrogen generation from hydrous hydrazine. In addition, evidence suggests that the Ni-based bimetallic catalysts can be used to release five equivalents of H-2 and one equivalent of N-2 from an aqueous solution of hydrazine borane N2H4BH3.