Production of NaBH4 and hydrogen release with catalyst

The purpose of this study was to investigate the production of NaBH₄ as hydrogen storage material and testing its hydrogen storage capacity in presence of catalyst. Synthesis of NaBH₄ was investigated with NaH and trimethyl borate which was also produced in previous studies. Different reaction temperatures, times and reactant ratios constitute the three parameters of the production process. The best combination determined by FT-IR, XRF and XRD analyses, was found to be 1.413 (mol/mol) TMB over NaH at 250 °C for 90 min. In order to increase the NaBH₄ purity ethylene diamine was used as solvent at 75 °C. After 4 extraction and crystallization processes 85.17% NaBH₄ purity was obtained. Moreover, hydrogen content of the product NaBH₄ was measured in a system with different catalysts since catalyst efficiency is important in decreasing the water dependence of dehydrogenation. CoCl₂ catalyst proved best by taking out more hydrogen, both from the NaBH₄ structure and from water.