Atomic layer deposition of ruthenium nanoparticles on electrospun carbon nanofibers: a highly efficient nanocatalyst for the hydrolytic dehydrogenation of methylamine borane

Date
2018
Advisor
Instructor
Source Title
ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
Print ISSN
1944-8244
Electronic ISSN
1944-8252
Publisher
American Chemical Society
Volume
10
Issue
31
Pages
26162 - 26169
Language
English
Type
Article
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract

We report the fabrication of a novel and highly active nanocatalyst system comprising electrospun carbon nanofiber (CNF)-supported ruthenium nanoparticles (NPs) (Ru@CNF), which can reproducibly be prepared by the ozone-assisted atomic layer deposition (ALD) of Ru NPs on electrospun CNFs. Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) was electropsun into bead-free one-dimensional (1D) nanofibers by electrospinning. The electrospun PAN nanofibers were converted into well-defined 1D CNFs by a two-step carbonization process. We took advantage of an ozone-assisted ALD technique to uniformly decorate the CNF support by highly monodisperse Ru NPs of 3.4 ± 0.4 nm size. The Ru@CNF nanocatalyst system catalyzes the hydrolytic dehydrogenation of methylamine borane (CH3NH2BH3), which has been considered as one of the attractive materials for the efficient chemical hydrogen storage, with a record turnover frequency of 563 mol H2/mol Ru × min and an excellent conversion (>99%) under air at room temperature with the activation energy (Ea) of 30.1 kJ/mol. Moreover, Ru@CNF demonstrated remarkable reusability performance and conserved 72% of its inherent catalytic activity even at the fifth recycle.

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Book Title
Keywords
Ammonia borane, Atomic layer deposition, Carbon nanofibers, Catalysis, Electrospinning, Hydrogen generation, Methylamine borane, Ruthenium nanoparticles
Citation
Published Version (Please cite this version)