Recoverable sepiolite coated B-CoP/ cellulose hybrid aerogel as monolithic catalysts for hydrogen generation via NaBH4 hydrolysis

[Display omitted] •The B-CoP@aSep exhibits significantly enhanced HGR performance for hydrolysis of NaBH4.•The structure of the chemically crosslinked aerogel catalyst remained stable after 5 cycles of testing.•Aerogel catalyst has the characteristics of light weight, flexible design and easy recovery. The design of an efficient and reusable monolithic catalyst is important for catalyzing the hydrolysis of NaBH4 to generate H2. Herein, an aerogel catalyst was prepared by freeze-drying of hydrazine modified cellulose nanofibers (NH2NH-CNF), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and B-doped CoP loaded sepiolite nanofibers. Further chemical cross-linking using glutaraldehyde (GA) resulted in better mechanical properties and shape recovery. Among them, the catalytic active component B-CoP@aSep has a low activation energy of 35.7 KJ·mol−1. In addition, the optimized composite aerogel catalyst can get hydrogen generation rate (3534mLmin-1gcatalyst-1), which was maintained at 79.4% even after 5 cycles of testing. The better mechanical and catalytic properties of aerogel catalysts are mainly attributed to the overall three-dimensional layered porous structure maintained by chemical bonds and the heterogeneous interface formed by B-doped CoP.