Construction of cost-effective bimetallic nanoparticles on titanium carbides as a superb catalyst for promoting hydrolysis of ammonia borane

Bimetallic cost-effective CoNi nanoparticles (NPs) are conveniently supported on titanium carbides (MXene) by a simple one-step wet-chemical method. The synthesized CoNi/MXene catalysts are characterized by XPS, TEM, STEM-HAADF and ICP-AES. The as-prepared CoNi NPs with a size of 2.8 nm are well dispersed on the MXene surface. It is found that among the CoNi bimetallic system, Co0.7Ni0.3 shows the best performance toward catalyzing ammonia borane (AB) decomposition with a turnover frequency value of 87.6 molH2 molcat−1 min−1 at 50 °C. The remarkable catalytic performance is attributed to the mild affiliation of MXene to NPs, which not only stabilizes NPs to maintain a good dispersion but also leaves sufficient surface active sites to facilitate the catalytic reaction.