Influence of Metal-Organic Framework Porosity on Hydrogen Generation from Nanoconfined Ammonia Borane

Hydrogen released from chemical hydride ammonia borane (AB, NH₃BH₃) can be greatly improved when AB is confined in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), showing reduced decomposition temperature and suppressed unwanted byproducts. However, it is still debatable whether the mechanism of improved AB dehydrogenation is due to catalysis or nanosize. In this research, selected MOFs (IRMOF-1, IRMOF-10, UiO-66, UiO-67, and MIL-53(Al)) were chosen to explore both catalytic effect of the metal clusters and the manipulation of pore size for nanoconfinement by variations in ligand length. When AB particle size was restricted by the controlled micropores of MOFs, we observed that the decomposition temperature was not correlated to the MOF catalytic environment, but inversely proportional to the reciprocal of the particle size. The results correspond well with the derived thermodynamic model for AB decomposition considering surface tension of nanoparticles.