Ammonia
with a hydrogen content of 17.6 wt % is viewed as a promising
hydrogen carrier because the infrastructures for its production, storage,
and transportation have been well established. The challenge is that
currently the straight production of H2 from NH3 only works at high temperatures. To date, various metal-based catalysts
have been developed for NH3 decomposition, among which
the Ru-based ones are the most superior due to the suitable Ru–N
binding energy. In the past decade, efforts have been put in to improve
the performance of Ru-based catalysts, and the target is to lower
Ru loading and reaction temperature. A large variety of support and
promoter materials were studied, and advanced techniques were employed
to disclose the relationship between catalytic performance and catalyst
structure. In this paper, we conduct a review on the materials that
are used as supports and/or promoters, focusing specifically on the
carbon (CNTs, CNFs, and graphene) and metal oxide (Al2O3, MgO, SiO2, and others) materials. Moreover, the
reaction mechanism for ammonia decomposition over Ru-based catalysts
is described, and future works on designing novel catalysts and unravelling
the catalyst structure–activity relationship are proposed.