Hydrogen generation by hydrolysis of borohydrids
Abstract
The search for clean energy to replace fossil fuel energy is an urgent problem of our time. Hydrogen is considered a suitable candidate for the production of pure and stable fuel due to its availability, high energy density and lack of contamination. The hydrolysis of borohydrides is a relatively safe and inexpensive way to obtain a sufficient amount of hydrogen. So, for example, sodium borohydride has a high gravimetric energy density of 9300 Wh/kg; contains ~10.6 wt.% of hydrogen, and its solution can release 90% or more of the stoichiometric amount of hydrogen through a hydrolysis reaction that can be carried out under ambient conditions. When using the appropriate catalyst, it is possible not only to accelerate the NaBH4 hydrolysis reaction, but also to regulate the amount of hydrogen released and the rate of its formation. A lot of scientific research has been devoted to the development of new catalysts and optimization of traditional ones for the hydrolysis and/or decomposition of borohydrides, which have resulted in the publication of nearly seventy-five thousand articles on ScienceDirect alone. However, most of them are focused on the characterization of the obtained catalytically active materials, as well as on the study of the kinetics of the process of hydrogen release from borohydrides. Only individual works studied the significance and prospects of borohydride hydrogen energy; few people focused on the mechanism of this chemical process, and, most interestingly, the study of the influence of pH on the kinetics of the target catalytic process took place while completely ignoring the phenomenon of selfhydrolysis and self-decomposition of borohydrides. In this regard, the purpose of the presented review article hasn’t been to highlight the main traditional aspects of the known catalytic process of hydrolysis and/or decomposition of borohydrides, but to focus on those important nuances, which are almost not paid attention to in published scientific works. For this, the following research tasks have been solved: to characterize the prospects of aqueous alkaline solutions of sodium borohydride for liquid-phase chemical storage of hydrogen, especially in low-temperature fuel cells, as well as its place in the general chain of hydrogen energy; to present the methods of measuring the volume of hydrogen during the hydrolysis of sodium borohydride; to analyze the pH of sodium borohydride solutions and its effect on the rate of hydrolysis; to highlight the mechanisms of reaction of sodium borohydride hydrolysis
Keywords
renewable energy; hydrogen energy; sodium borohydride; half-decomposition; reaction mechanism
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