In this paper, a novel Al-BiOCl material has been prepared by milling Al powder and BiOCl firstly. Experimental results show that BiOCl-doped can prevent an inert alumina film forming on the surface of Al particles and induce the rapid hydrogen generation as well as high conversion rate. SEM, XRD, EDS, TEM, XPS and calorimetric techniques are used for the mechanism analysis of the samples. The results demonstrate the fresh surface of Al, AlCl3, Bi and Bi2O3 are produced in situ under ball milling Al and BiOCl, which play an important role in hydrolysis reaction of Al. The hydrogen yield of Al-15 wt% BiOCl rises to 1058.1 mL g(-1) in about 5 min, corresponding to the high conversion yield of 91.6% at room temperature. After doping additives (such as LiH, Bi or AlCl3), hydrogen generation performances of Al BiOCl-additive are further improved. For example, the conversion yield and maximum hydrogen generation rate (MHGR) of Al BiOCl LiH can increase to 94.9% and 3178.5 mL g(-1) min(-1), respectively. Therefore, the proposed materials in this paper are expected to serve as a hydrogen generation material for the fuel cells. (C) 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.