Fast hydrogen generation from NaBH4 solution accelerated by ferric catalysts

Ferric catalysts have been synthesized from the reactions between pre-infused ferric salts and simultaneous feeding of NaBH4 solution into a H-2 generating reactor, and were proved to accelerate the subsequent H-2 generation reaction. It is found that there are competitive reactions during H-2 generation which lead to the formation of active FeB or inactive Fe(OH)(3). Also, the anion (Cl- or NO3-) in the pre-infused ferric salt is crucial to the reaction pathway. The H-2 generation route using FeCl3 as the pre-infused ferric salt shows excellent activity, resulting in a high H-2 generation efficiency (over 94%) and an average H-2 generation rate of 1.08 L/min. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.