Preparation of supported metal catalyst for hydrogen production from sodium borohydride

Among the wind energy, solar energy, hydroelectric energy etc., renewable energy resource, hydrogen is the most important energy source. Hydrogen production could be done by using different sources as fossil fuels, natural gas, chemical hydrides etc. Inside of chemical hydrides, boron hydrides to other chemical hydrides are preferred because of high hydrogen capacities, non-flammability, non-explosive nature, and controlled hydrogen release. The limiting parameters for the use of borohydride are the high price and the cost of the catalyst. In literature, there are many studies to the preparation of the catalyst using different material to production hydrogen. However, there are a limited number of studies to the preparation of catalysts by the green synthesis from biobased materials. In this study, by using catalyst prepared by green synthesis, the production of hydrogen from NaBH4 alkaline solution and the photocatalytic reduction of methylene blue in an aqueous solution were investigated. Nickel oxide nanoparticles (NiO-NP) were synthesized by green synthesis using Lupinus Albus extract. The synthesized NiO-NP was characterized by SEM, EDX, TEM, XRD, XRF, BET, FTIR and UV analyses. The NiO-NP catalyst particle size was found to be in the range of 5-20 nm. Methylene blue in aqueous media was removed by The NiO-NP catalyst at 97% in 8 min. The photocatalytic reaction kinetics was investigated by a pseudo-first order model and the reaction rate constant were calculated as 0.66 s-1 The hydrogen generation rate (HGR) was calculated as 34,6 mL gcat−1 min−1 in the presence of 1,5 g NiO-NP catalyst, 2,5% NaBH4, 6% NaOH and 30oC. The activation energy and reaction rate constant of the NaBH4 hydrolysis reaction were determinedas 45.88 kJ mol−1 and 0,38 s-1 respectively.