Synthesis and characterization of nanocatalysts for hydrogen production from metal hydrides

In this study, in order to produce hydrogen by hydrolysis reaction of NaBH4, Ni/TiO2 catalysts were synthesized by impregnation, sol-gel and supercritical CO2 method and Pd/TiO2 catalyst was synthesized by sol-gel method. The synthesized catalysts were characterized by XRD, XRF, TGA, FT-IR, SEM and BET. The activities of the catalysts were tested in the reaction of hydrogen production NaBH4. Parametric studies were carried out with Ni/TiO2 catalyst which have 40% Ni content synthesized by sol-gel method at these conditions: reaction temperature (20, 30, 40, 50 and 60°C), catalyst amount (75, 100, 150 and 200 mg), NaBH4 amount (75, 100 and 125 mg), NaOH initial concentration (0.25, 0.5, 0.75 and 1M) conditions. The hydrogen yield and hydrogen production rate were determined as 100% and 110.87 mL/gcat.min at 60oC respectively at the reaction conditions of 5 mL of 0.25 M NaOH, 100 mg NaBH4, 100 mg Ni/TiO2. In order to find out the reaction rate by using the data obtained from NaBH4 hydrolysis in the presence of catalyst n. degree reaction rate equation was used. The degree of reaction rate and activation energy of the Ni/TiO2 were determined as 0.08 and 17.06 kJ/mol respectively.