Structural and electronic effects boosting Ni-doped Mo2C catalyst toward high-efficiency C O/C C bonds cleavage

The doped Ni enhanced both structural and electronic effects on Mo 2 C catalyst toward high-efficiency C-O/C-C bonds cleavage. The selective cleavage of C-O and C-C is facing a challenge in the field of catalysis. In the present work, we studied the influence of doped Ni on the structure and electronic properties, as well as the selective C-O/C-C bond cleavages in the hydrodeoxygenation of palmitic acid over Ni-Mo 2 C catalyst. The catalytic activity on Ni doped Mo 2 C with TOF of 6.9 × 10 3 h –1 is much superior to intrinsic Mo 2 C catalyst, which is also higher than most noble metal catalysts. Structurally, doped Ni raises the active particle dispersion and the coordination numbers of Mo species (Mo-C and Mo-O), improves the graphitization degree to promote the electron transfer, and increases the amount of Lewis and Brønsted acid, which are responsible for the excellent hydrodeoxygenation performance. The Ni promotes simultaneously C-O and C-C bonds cleavage to produce pentadecane and hexadecane owing to the increase of electron-rich Mo sites after Ni doping. These findings contribute to the understanding of the nature of Ni-doped Mo 2 C on the roles as catalytic active sites for C-O and C-C bonds cleavage.