Highly efficient heterogeneous thermal catalysis for noble-metal-free hydrogen production from formic acid

2025-12-27
Nature Communications
Liang Qiu, Lin Yao, Ping Wang, Zhiwei Jiang, Jinglin Li, Ying Li, Yixin Li, Zhaosong Wu, Muhammad Salman Nasir, Ding Wang, Xinqiang Wang, Zhen Huang, Baowen Zhou

Abstract

Hydrogen extraction from liquid hydrogen carriers is a promising strategy to address hydrogen storage and transportation challenges for a hydrogen economy. We report a novel heterogeneous catalytic architecture, Ni(Mn)-O-P/GaN nanowires, for efficient, selective, and ultra-stable hydrogen evolution from formic acid (FA). The catalyst achieves a high activity of 29.92 mol H2·gcat−1·h−1 with nearly 100% selectivity and a high turnover frequency (TOF) of 31,019.2 h−1 at 150 °C. It exhibits exceptional stability over 4000 hours under fluctuated temperatures (55-75 °C) with a turnover numbers (TONs) of 5,023,060, integrable with low-grade industrial waste heat. In-situ characterizations, isotope experiments, and density functional theory calculations collectively reveal that the synergy between Ni(Mn)-O-P and GaN are favorable for the O-H dissociation of FA with an interesting H-exchange mechanism with H2O while inhibiting the undesired FA dehydration and coking formation. An industrial prototype test validates practical on-demand hydrogen production using waste heat.