A series of bulk and supported NiB amorphous alloy catalysts with different particle sizes were prepared by different chemical reduction methods. By adding a certain volume of NH3 to the reaction system and adjusting the reaction temperature, respectively, the velocity of the reaction between Ni2+ and BH4- could be controlled and the NiB alloys with particle sizes ranging from 10 to 400nm were obtained. A novel method to prepare the supported NiB catalyst, the powder electroless plating method was also studied. The bulk and supported NiB catalysts were characterized by XRD, ICP and TEM. Hydrogenation of sulfolene was selected as the probe reaction to investigate their catalytic performance. The results revealed that the NiB/MgO prepared by Ag inducing electroless plating showed much higher catalytic activity than Raney Ni catalyst, and the powder electroless plating was a promising method to prepare the supported NiB amorphous alloy catalysts.

A series of alumina samples were prepared using β-cyclodextrin as the non-surfactant template. These samples were characterized by XRD, BET and TEM. The results showed that the alumina samples prepared using β-cyclodextrin template had the higher surface areas (124-484 m2/g), larger pore volumes (0.7-1.27 mL/g) and more thermal stability than samples prepared without using β-cyclodextrin.

Two supported amorphous NiB catalysts (NiB/TiO2) were prepared by two kinds of chemical reduction methods: the impregnation–wetness–reduction method and the chemical deposition method. For comparison, the unsupported NiB was also prepared by the chemical reduction method. Their catalytic activities were measured through liquid phase hydrogenation of sulfolene under moderate pressure. The catalysts were characterized by XRD, inductively coupled plasma (ICP), scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), Selected area electronic diffraction (SAED) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The TEM morphologies revealed that (1) the amorphous NiB alloy was well dispersed as ultrafine particles on the TiO2 support, and (2) there was a strong interaction between NiB alloy and the TiO2 support. The thermal stability of the amorphous NiB alloy was increased owing to the introduction of the support.

Both the unsupported and supported NiB amorphous alloy catalysts (NiB and NiB/TiO2) were prepared by the chemical reduction method. Their catalytic activities were tested by the hydrogenation of sulfolene. The interactions between the NiB alloy and TiO2 were discussed for the first time by using XRD, ICP, SEM and TEM.