Investigation of sodium borohydride hydrolysis in continuous reaction system

Sodium borohydride, a hydrogen carrier due to the hydrolysis reaction, can serve as a fuel at a capacity of 10.6% by taking hydrogen from water. However, hydrolysis reactions must take place in the catalyst environment in order to achieve high efficiency. Important properties for such hydrolysis systems involve integrating the fuel characteristic of Sodium Borohydride into a continuous system and producing highly efficient, inexpensive, easy to regenerate and adaptable catalysts to the hydrolysis system with improved surface properties. In this study, different bimetallic and trimetallic catalysts have been investigated in a continuous hydrogen generation system of sodium borohydride (NaBH4). With the aim of eliminating the 'byproduct effect' and increasing the efficiency, ceramic foams, coated with bimetallic lithium-cobalt and copper-cobalt oxides were used in a continuous reactor as catalysts. In addition, trimetallic catalysts have been prepared by adding oxides of Pt and Pd to bimetallic oxides and coated on ceramic foam. Prepared foam catalysts have been characterized by SEM for morphological structure analysis, BET for surface area measurements, ICP-MS for elemental composition, XRD and XPS for crystal structure analysis. Hydrogen production yield has been examined in terms of catalyst type, NaBH4/NaOH rate, flow rate and reaction temperature in the continues reaction system.