Catalytic hydrolysis of ammonia borane (AB) can be applied as an on-demand hydrogen production system. Low-cost and highly active catalysts towards AB hydrolysis are highly desirable for the industrial application of this technology. In this paper, we have reported the synthesis of Cu₃P-Co₂P nanoplatelets by a simple method and the formation process of the final products. It is revealed that Cu₂O–Co(OH)₂ composite nanoplatelets are obtained after hydrothermal reaction, which are transformed into Cu₃P-Co₂P nanoplatelets during the phosphorization process. In AB hydrolysis, the Cu₃P-Co₂P nanoplatelets exhibit high catalytic activity with the hydrogen generation rate of 4.03 L_H2 g_cat.⁻¹ min⁻¹, which is much higher than those for many noble-metal-free catalysts in the documents. It is discovered that AB hydrolysis follows the pseudo-first-order kinetics with respect to the catalyst dosage and pseudo-zero-order kinetics with respect to the AB amount. In view of the cheapness and high performance, the Cu₃P-Co₂P nanoplatelets can be a promising catalyst candidate to AB hydrolysis for hydrogen production.

Graphical Abstract