We focus on the recent advances in non-noble metal catalyst design, synthesis and applications in dehydrogenation of chemical hydrides (e.g. NaBH₄, NH₃BH₃, NH₃, N₂H₄, N₂H₄BH₃) due to their high hydrogen contents and CO-free H₂production.

Ni nanoparticles modified with a Mo dopant have been synthesized on graphene sheets via a facile chemical reduction route, which show the highest catalytic activity reported to date for noble-metal-free catalysts for hydrogen evolution from the hydrolysis of ammonia borane with a turnover frequency value as high as 66.7 mol H₂ (mol metal min)⁻¹.

Ultrafine copper nanoparticles (Cu NPs) within porous silica nanospheres (Cu@SiO₂) were prepared via a simple one-pot synthetic route in a reverse micelle system and characterized by SEM, TEM, EDX, XRD, N₂ adsorption-desorption, CO-TPD, XPS, and ICP methods. The characterized results show that ultrafine Cu NPs with diameter of around 2 nm are effectively embedded in the center of well-proportioned spherical SiO₂ NPs of about 25 nm in diameter. Compared to commercial SiO₂ supported Cu NPs, SiO₂ nanospheres supported Cu NPs, and free Cu NPs, the synthesized core-shell nanospheres Cu@SiO₂ exhibit a superior catalytic activity for the hydrolytic dehydrogenation of ammonia borane (AB, NH₃BH₃) and hydrazine borane (HB, N₂H₄BH₃) under ambient atmosphere at room temperature. The turnover frequencies (TOF) for the hydrolysis of AB and HB in the presence of Cu@SiO₂ nanospheres were measured to be 3.24 and 7.58 mol H₂ (mol Cu min)⁻¹, respectively, relatively high values for Cu nanocatalysts in the same reaction. In addition, the recycle tests show that the Cu@SiO₂ nanospheres are still highly active in the hydrolysis of AB and HB, preserving 90 and 85% of their initial catalytic activity even after ten recycles, respectively.