Harvesting Clean Energy Through H 2 Production Using Cobalt-Boride-Based Nanocatalyst R. Fernandes, N. Patel, D.C. Kothari, and A. Miotello Abstract Increase in the energy requirement and emission of greenhouse gases have been a growing concern. Hydrogen is recognized as a clean fuel and a promising solution for energy storage. At present, hydrogen required for fuel cell (FC) is mostly produced at industrial scales using the steam reforming of natural gas. These industries possibly leave CO and CO 2 into the atmosphere, which are the major known reasons for the devastating climate changes witnessed today. More- over, improper separation of these carbon contaminants from H 2 , especially CO (even at ppm level), affects the performance of FC by catalyst poisoning. “Hydro- lysis of chemical hydrides” and “electrochemical water splitting,” through renew- able energy sources, are considered as the cleanest and simplest techniques to produce FC grade H 2 for onboard and off-board applications, respectively. Herein, the role of low-cost cobalt-boride (Co-B)-based nanocatalysts for both these appli- cations is summarized. Chemical hydrides have high hydrogen storage capacity in terms of volumetric and gravimetric efficiencies and are promising candidates to obtain pure hydrogen at a very high rate at room temperatures for on-broad applications. In the presence of certain catalysts, a large amount of pure hydrogen gas is produced by the hydrolysis of chemical hydrides. Noble metal catalysts (e.g., Ru and Pt) enhance the hydrogen production rate but are not viable for industrial application owing to their high cost and low availability. Low-cost amorphous Co-B nanocatalysts, prepared by reduction of metal salts, have attracted great attention in the catalysis community, owing to their unique properties such as isotropic structure, high concentration of coordinative unsaturated sites, relevant chemical stability, and low cost. However, Co-B nanoparticles agglomeration is a major problem, but it can be solved by introducing transition metals like Mo, W, and Cr as a possible atomic diffusion barrier. These promoter metals, mainly in the form of oxides, are efficient and even a small atomic concentration is able to significantly increase the R. Fernandes (*) • N. Patel • D.C. Kothari Department of Physics and National Centre for Nanosciences & Nanotechnology, University of Mumbai, Vidyanagari, Santacruz (E), Mumbai 400098, India e-mail: ferns1@gmail.com A. Miotello Dipartimento di Fisica, Universit a degli Studi di Trento, I-38123 Povo, Trento, Italy © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017 J. Chattopadhyay, R. Srivastava (eds.), Advanced Nanomaterials in Biomedical, Sensor and Energy Applications, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-5346-7_3 35