Abstract
The fabrication of cost effective heterogeneous catalysts for the release of hydrogen from hydrogen storage materials is the key technological challenge to the fuel-cell based hydrogen econ-omy. Ag-Co bimetallic NPs were fabricated by using sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) and sodium borohydride as stabilizing and reducing agents, respectively. Catalytic activity of SDS-Ag-Co was higher than that of SDS free Ag-Co and monometallic (Ag and Co) due to the electron interactions and synergistic effect between the Ag and Co. Ag10-Co90 exhibited the superior catalytic activity, with rate constant of 5.2 x 10(-4) s(-1 )at 303 K, activation energy of 46 kJ/mol, activation enthalpy of 44 kJ/mol, activation entropy of -165 J/K/mol, and turn over frequency of 240 h(-1). The hydro-gen generation rate increased and decreased with in increasing temperature, molar concentration of formic acid, presence of sodium formate, and pH, respectively. The kinetic rate equation can be sta-ted as: rate = -d[formic acid]/dt = k(obs)[formic acid](0.99)[Ag50Co50]0.98, k(obs) = 2.48 x 10(7) exp (-5637.96/RT). (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).