Catalysis for hydrogen storage

DOE recently issued a Grand Challenge in Hydrogen Storage. In response to this call, there has been a recent concerted call from the scientific community for intensive fundamental studies to develop new approaches and novel materials for hydrogen fuel cells, hydrogen production, and storage to move the energy economy from one based on fossil fuels to one based upon hydrogen. In situ XAFS, NMR, and IR spectroscopies were applied to study the transition metal-catalyzed H₂ release from ammonia boranes. These methods allowed real time interrogations of substrates, products and catalysts yielding kinetics and mechanistic information not possible with ex situ techniques. The release of H₂ from NH₃BH₃, Me₂NHBH₃, and (iPr)₂NHBH₃ was studied using rhodium and ruthenium-based catalysts. Mechanistic differences between thermal and catalyzed H₂ release were observed. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 230th ACS National Meeting (Washington, DC 8/28/2005-9/1/2005).