Hydrogen gas has been regarded as one of the most promising energy sources. Hydrolysis of hydrides is one of the methods for
producing hydrogen that has been documented. However, efficient catalysts are necessary to increase the rate at which hydrogen
is generated. In the current investigation, Mn 2 O3 @C derived from metal–organic framework (MOF) was used, for the first time,
as an efficient catalyst for the green generation of H 2 —a clean and sustainable fuel—from the hydrolysis of NaBH4 . In addition,
the biological performances of this nanocatalyst towards six types of human pathogenic bacteria were also tested. Mn 2 O3 @C was
fabricated from the carbonization of manganese(II) benzene-dicarboxylate metal–organic frameworks (Mn-BDC). The fabricated
catalyst was characterized by XRD, XPS, FTIR, HRTEM, and nitrogen sorption analyses. XRD and XPS analyses confirmed the
successful formation of Mn 2 O3 @C at a calcination temperature of 400 °C. Results revealed that, at a reaction temperature of
28 °C, Mn 2 O3 @C offers values of hydrogen generation rate (HGR) of 150, 352, 555, 885, and 1250 mL min−1 g−1 corresponding to
weight of NaBH4 of 0.19, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, and 1.0 g, respectively. Furthermore, the catalytic performance is significantly influenced by
the reaction temperature; where at 28, 35, 40, and 50 °C, respectively, HGR values of 885, 1150, 1667, and 2857 mL min−1 g−1 were
achieved. According to the pseudo-first-order equation, Mn 2 O3 @C has an estimated apparent activation energy of 41.5 kJ mol−1 .
Moreover, thermodynamic calculations showed that borohydride hydrolyzes over Mn 2 O3 @C in an endothermic, entropy-driven,
and spontaneous manner. The antibacterial properties of Mn 2 O3 @C NPs were tested against six pathogenic bacteria: Escherichia
coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Serratia plymuthica, Bacillus cereus, B. subtilis, and Staphylococcus aureus. Mn 2 O3 @C NPs showed
high antibacterial properties, especially at 150 μg mL−1 concentration, with growth inhibition of 82.3%, 73.8%, 72.7%, and 71.8%
of S. aureus, E. coli, B. subtilis, and B. cereus, compared with 67%, 58.2%, 56.6%, and 61.4% of chloramphenicol, respectively