Fast hydrogen generation from NaBH4 solution accelerated by ferric catalysts

Abstract Ferric catalysts have been synthesized from the reactions between pre-infused ferric salts and simultaneous feeding of NaBH 4 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 NO 3 − ) in the pre-infused ferric salt is crucial to the reaction pathway. The H 2 generation route using FeCl 3 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.