Pt/facet-Engineered Hydroxyapatite Co-Catalyst for Highly Efficient Hydrolysis of Ammonia Borane

Abstract

Abstract Ammonia borane (AB, NH3BH3) is a promising candidate for a hydrogen-storage material because of its high stability as a solid state at room temperature under atmospheric pressure. This study demonstrated a novel catalyst design for highly efficient hydrolysis of AB by hybridizing Pt catalyst with hydroxyapatite (HAp, Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2) as an “active support”, possessing Lewis-acidic Ca2+ sites in the a-plane and Lewis-basic PO43- sites in the c-plane. Facet-engineered HAp particles were synthesized via the microwave-assisted hydrothermal reaction using Ca-EDTA chelates. Varying the Ca/P ratio of HAp precursor (from 1.5 to 1.8) affected the particle morphology, exposed facet ratio of {300} to {002}, and the percentage of phosphate anion species (PO43- and HPO42-). The rod-like HAp sole catalysts performed approximately 2-fold higher activity for the hydrolysis of AB, compared with spherical HAp with low crystallinity. Moreover, the Pt/rod-like HAp co-catalyst demonstrated superior catalytic performance with a turnover frequency (TOF) of 623 molH2 molPt-1 min-1 than the Pt/spherical HAp (<232 molH2 molPt-1 min-1). We proposed a possible mechanism of a synergistic effect in the significant enhancement of the hydrogen release rate from AB. Lewis basic PO43- and Lewis acidic Ca2+ sites on HAp would affect preferential adsorption of electron-deficient BH3 and electron-rich NH3 groups in AB, catalyzing cleavage of B-N bonds. Besides, PO43- sites play a critical role in anchoring Pt particles towards electron transfer from Pt to PO43-, resulting in considerable enhancement of catalytic performance in dissociative adsorption of water molecules, which is a rate-determining step in the hydrolysis. Graphical Abstract