Excellent Catalytic Performance of ISOBAM Stabilized Co/Fe Colloidal Catalysts toward KBH₄ Hydrolysis

Recently, developing a cost-effective and high-performance catalyst is regarded as an urgent priority for hydrogen generation technology. In this work, ISOBAM-104 stabilized Co/Fe colloidal catalysts were prepared via a co-reduction method and used for the hydrogen generation from KBH₄ hydrolysis. The obtained ISOBAM-104 stabilized Co₁₀Fe₉₀ colloidal catalysts exhibit an outstanding catalytic activity of 37,900 mL-H₂ min^-1 g-Co^-1, which is far higher than that of Fe or Co monometallic nanoparticles (MNPs). The apparent activation energy (E_a) of the as-prepared Co₁₀Fe₉₀ colloidal catalysts is only 14.6 ± 0.7 kJ mol^-1, which is much lower than that of previous reported noble metal-based catalysts. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results and density functional theory calculations demonstrate that the electron transfer between Fe and Co atoms is beneficial for the catalytic hydrolysis of KBH₄.