Abstract

Molybdenum carbide was supported on three types of carbon support—activated carbon; multi-walled carbon nanotubes; and carbon nanofibers—using ammonium molybdate and molybdic acid as Mo precursors. The use of activated carbon as support afforded an X-ray amorphous Mo phase, whereas crystalline molybdenum carbide phases were obtained on carbon nanofibers and, in some cases, on carbon nanotubes. When the resulting catalysts were tested in the hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) of guaiacol in dodecane, catechol and phenol were obtained as the main products, although in some instances significant amounts of cyclohexane were produced. The observation of catechol in all reaction mixtures suggests that guaiacol was converted into phenol via sequential demethylation and HDO, although the simultaneous occurrence of a direct demethoxylation pathway cannot be discounted. Catalysts based on carbon nanofibers generally afforded the highest yields of phenol; notably, the only crystalline phase detected in these samples was Mo2C or Mo2C-ζ, suggesting that crystalline Mo2C is particularly selective to phenol. At 350 °C, carbon nanofiber supported Mo2C afforded near quantitative guaiacol conversion, the selectivity to phenol approaching 50%. When guaiacol HDO was performed in the presence of acetic acid and furfural, guaiacol conversion decreased, although the selectivity to both catechol and phenol was increased.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-2015

Notes/Citation Information

Published in Catalysts, v. 5, no. 1, p. 424-441.

© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/catal5010424

Funding Information

This work was supported by a Seed Grant of the University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research (UK CAER).

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