Low‐Temperature Ammonia Decomposition over Sm2O3 Supported Non‐Noble Metal (Fe, Co, and Ni) Catalysts

Abstract

AbstractThe generation of hydrogen from ammonia has arisen great interests along with the flourish of hydrogen energy. The widely utilization of ruthenium in catalyzing ammonia decomposition has triggered research on the development of alternative catalysts based on more readily available non‐noble metals. Herein, a series of non‐noble metal catalysts with Co/Ni/Fe nanoparticles anchored on Sm2O3 nanorods are developed via a facile precipitation method, which can effectively catalyze ammonia decomposition at temperatures below 600 °C. Among these non‐noble catalysts, Co/Sm2O3 performs the best and achieves a constant H2 production rate of 163 mmolH2/gCo/min for more than 100 hours under the condition of 550 °C and WHSV=15000 mL/gcat/h, which exceeds most of the recently reported Co‐based catalysts. Further characterizations have disclosed that such superior catalytic performance should originate from the improved interaction between non‐noble metals and Sm2O3 support. These findings not only provide a series of active and robust non‐noble catalysts for catalyzing ammonia decomposition at relatively low temperatures, but also manifest the effect of rare earth oxides in regulating the geometric and electronic properties of non‐noble metals through metal‐support interactions.