Catalyst synthesis from agricultural wastes for hydrogen generation from hydrolysis of sodium

Hydrogen is an environmentally friendly clean energy source, which is an alternative to fossil fuels, due to both the gradual decrease of fossil fuels sources such as natural gas, oil and coal, and the harmful emission gases they release to the atmosphere. Sodium borohydride is an important chemical hydride with high hydrogen storage capacity. A catalyst is needed to accelerate the hydrolysis reaction of sodium borohydride to produce hydrogen. In this study, the corn waste supported CoB catalyst was synthesized by impregnation and then reduction with sodium borohydride, and the corn waste supported CoO catalyst was synthesized by impregnation and calcination methods. It was also prepared as a metal-free catalyst after the corn waste was activated with phosphoric acid, zinc chloride, acetic acid and sulfuric acid chemicals and burned in the furnace. The synthesized catalysts were characterized by XRD, ICP-MS, BET, SEM/EDS, FTIR and XPS analysis methods. The activities of the synthesized catalysts were tested for the hydrolysis reaction of sodium borohydride and the effects of these catalysts on the hydrogen production rate were investigated. The effects of catalyst preparation conditions, NaOH concentration, catalyst amount, the effects of reaction temperature and NaBH4 concentration on hydrogen production rate were examined. In addition, the kinetics of the hydrolysis reaction and the reusability of the synthesized catalysts were investigated.