Modulating Electronic Metal‐Support Interactions to Boost Visible‐Light‐Driven Hydrolysis of Ammonia Borane: Nickel‐Platinum Nanoparticles Supported on Phosphorus‐Doped Titania

Abstract

AbstractAmmonia borane (AB) is a promising material for chemical H2 storage owing to its high H2 density (up to 19.6 wt %). However, the development of an efficient catalyst for driving H2 evolution through AB hydrolysis remains challenging. Therefore, a visible‐light‐driven strategy for generating H2 through AB hydrolysis was implemented in this study using Ni−Pt nanoparticles supported on phosphorus‐doped TiO2 (Ni‐Pt/P‐TiO2) as photocatalysts. Through surface engineering, P‐TiO2 was prepared by phytic‐acid‐assisted phosphorization and then employed as an ideal support for immobilizing Ni−Pt nanoparticles via a facile co‐reduction strategy. Under visible‐light irradiation at 283 K, Ni40Pt60/P‐TiO2 exhibited improved recyclability and a high turnover frequency of 967.8 mol  molPt−1 min−1. Characterization experiments and density functional theory calculations indicated that the enhanced performance of Ni40Pt60/P‐TiO2 originated from a combination of the Ni−Pt alloying effect, the Mott–Schottky junction at the metal‐semiconductor interface, and strong metal‐support interactions. These findings not only underscore the benefits of utilizing multipronged effects to construct highly active AB‐hydrolyzing catalysts, but also pave a path toward designing high‐performance catalysts by surface engineering to modulate the electronic metal‐support interactions for other visible‐light‐induced reactions.