Morphology-dependent catalytic activity of plasmonic MoO3−x for hydrolytic dehydrogenation of ammonia borane

Abstract

Series of plasmonic MoO[Formula: see text] particles have been prepared by a facile solvothermal method to produce hydrogen via hydrolytic dehydrogenation of ammonia borane. Interestingly, the as-prepared MoO[Formula: see text] particles present various morphologies, i.e. flower, schistose and nanorod by simply tuning the reaction temperature and solvent volume ratio of distilled water and acetic acid. More importantly, these MoO[Formula: see text] particles with different morphologies exhibit various catalytic performances of NH 3 BH 3 under the irradiation of visible light. Particularly, the flower-like MoO[Formula: see text] microstructure possesses the best catalytic activity for hydrogen production probably owing to the relatively large surface area and strong LSPR in the visible region.