title: Hydrolysis of ammonia borane and metal amidoboranes: A comparative study.
abstract: A gas phase mechanistic investigation has been carried out theoretically to explore the hydrolysis pathway of ammonia borane (NH3BH3) and metal amidoboranes (MNH2BH3, M = Li,Na). The Solvation Model based on Density (SMD) has been employed to show the effect of bulk water on the reaction mechanism. Gibbs free energy of solvation has also been computed to evaluate the stabilization of the participating systems in water medium which directly affects the barrier heights in the potential energy surface of hydrolysis reaction. To validate the experimentally observed kinetics studies, we have carried out transition state theory calculations on these hydrolysis reactions. Our result shows that the hydrolysis of both the metal amidoboranes exhibits greatly improved kinetics over the neat NH3BH3 hydrolysis which corroborates well with the experimental observation. Between the two amidoboranes, hydrolysis of LiNH2BH3 is found to be kinetically favored over that of NaNH2BH3, making it a better candidate for releasing molecular hydrogen.
authors.affiliation: Department of Spectroscopy, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Jadavpur, Kolkata 700032, India.
authors.forename: Tahamida
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Banu
authors.affiliation: Department of Spectroscopy, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Jadavpur, Kolkata 700032, India.
authors.forename: Tanay
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Debnath
authors.affiliation: Department of Spectroscopy, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Jadavpur, Kolkata 700032, India.
authors.forename: Tamalika
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ash
authors.affiliation: Department of Spectroscopy, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Jadavpur, Kolkata 700032, India.
authors.forename: Abhijit K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Das