Synthesis and characterization of molybdenum carbide catalysts on different carbon supports

Molybdenum carbide is a noble-metal-like material, which shows great potential in many applications. The conventional Temperature-Programmed-Reduction (TPRe) method uses carbonaceous gases to carburize with molybdenum precursors, which has made a significant progress but still hard to scale up. In this work, molybdenum carbides were prepared by carburization of ammonium molybdenum molybdate on cellulose, g-C3N4, MWCNTs and sodium lignosulfonate without using any gaseous carbon source. Moreover, the formation of molybdenum carbide was subjected to in-depth investigation by using an in situ Simultaneous Thermal Analyzer – Quadrupole Mass Spectrometry coupling System. The technique revealed that the solid carbon carriers do have a great effect on the formation of molybdenum carbides. Furthermore, various characterization methods such as XRD, SEM, CO-TPD, FTIR and organic element analysis (OEA) were also applied to investigate the property of prepared molybdenum carbides. The results suggested that the prepared molybdenum carbides with CEL, MWCNTs and SLF as carbon supports could retain the skeleton and porous structure of a solid carbon carrier, and the prepared molybdenum carbides with g-C3N4 as a carbon support could generate a new three-dimensional (3D) structure support, and the composition of carriers would also have an impact on the adsorption and physicochemical properties of molybdenum carbides.