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Abstract: Hydrolysis of sodium borohydride NaBH4 is a promising method for on-board hydrogen supply for fuel cells. In this study, the hydrolysis reaction was studied by starting with solid NaBH4 rather than aqueous borohydride solutions, and adding less amount of water in an attempt to explore the maximum hydrogen generation capacity. It was found that hydrogen could be liberated at very high rates and over than 90% conversion rates were achieved when the mole ratio of water to sodium borohydride was not less than 4:1. The final hydrogen generation capacity was achieved as high as 6.7wt%. Materials such as CoCl2 or cobalt powder were found to be effective as the catalysts for the hydrolysis reaction at such reaction conditions. A large heat effect due to the exothermic reaction and a low melting point of NaBO2·4H2O led to the acceleration of hydrogen generation at the latter part of the hydrolysis process. It is thus promising to utilize these reaction conditions to achieve high hydrogen generation capacity by proper system design. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Borohydrides, a group of compounds with large hydrogen contents, can generate hydrogen readily by their hydrolysis reaction. In this study catalysts based on nickel and cobalt were developed to accelerate the hydrolysis reaction for hydrogen generation. Catalysts in four forms were tested for each metal: fine metal powder, metal salt, metal boride and Raney metal. It was found that the hydrolysis reaction was primary a zero-order reaction under the catalysis of these catalysts. Although cobalt showed higher catalytic activity than nickel in most cases, Raney Ni exhibited almost the same activity as the Raney Co. Among four chemical forms for nickel, Raney Ni demonstrated the best performance. Moreover, Raney catalysts made from alloys of nickel and cobalt showed even higher activity. The reaction on Raney metals was also characterized by a slowdown in hydrogen generation rate at low borohydride concentrations because of a mass transfer limitation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Borohydrides are a group of compounds with high hydrogen contents. For example, contains 10.6 wt% hydrogen. The direct anodic oxidation of borohydride provides more negative potentials than that of hydrogen. One ion of generates eight electrons. The theoretical energy density can reach as high as 9.3 Wh/g of NaBH4 if using sodium borohydride as the fuel. The theoretical energy conversion efficiency of the DBFC (0.91) is larger than that of the PEMFC (0.83). Recently, the cell power density 290 mW/cm2 has been achieved. A five-cell stack with an effective area of 67 cm2 demonstrated that the power reached to 110 W when the operation temperature reached 60  C, even if the stack operation started at room temperature without humidification. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]