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Updated: Mar 19, 2026

Temperature-programmed Deoxygenation of Acetic Acid on Molybdenum Carbide Catalysts
Published on: February 7, 2017
Synthesis of α-MoC1-x Nanoparticles with a Surface-Modified SBA-15 Hard Template: Determination of Structure-Function
Frederick G Baddour1, Connor P Nash1, Joshua A Schaidle2
1National Bioenergy Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 15013 Denver West Parkway, Golden, CO, 80401, USA.
Abstract:
Surface modification of mesoporous SBA-15 silica generated a hydrophobic environment for a molybdenum diamine (Mo-diamine) precursor solution, enabling direct growth of isolated 1.9±0.4 nm α-MoC1-x nanoparticles (NPs) inside the pores of the support. The resulting NP catalysts are bifunctional, and compared to bulk α-MoC1-x and β-Mo2 C, the NPs exhibit a greater acid-site:H-site ratio and a fraction of stronger acid sites. The greater acid-site:H-site ratio results in higher decarbonylation (DCO) selectivity during acetic acid hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) reactions, and the stronger acid sites lead to higher activity and ketonization (KET) selectivity at high temperatures. The hard-templating synthetic method could be a versatile route toward carbide NPs of varying size, composition, and phase, on a range of mesoporous oxide supports.
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