Controllable synthesis of transition metal-modified molybdenum carbide crystalline phases and its application on hydrodeoxygenation of phenol

Biomass energy is a kind of energy that can play an important supporting role in the future. In-situ hydrogenation of biomass reduces the consumption of hydrogen and lowers the cost of production, so the focus on in-situ hydrogenation of bio-oils is of great green chemistry and practical significance, which can significantly reduce the cost of producing bio-oils with high combustion performance to replace fossil fuels. In this paper, a series of nickel-modified molybdenum carbide catalysts (Ni-Mo x C) with two crystalline phase structures simultaneously were prepared by one-step pyrolysis based on organic-inorganic hybrid precursors. As-synthesized molybdenum carbide materials were characterized by XRD, XPS and so on. It was found that the synthesized molybdenum carbide catalysts exhibited good catalytic performance for the hydrodeoxygenation of phenol, with the conversion and selectivity of phenol and cyclohexanol being 95.1% and 93.4%, respectively, in which methanol and water were the most green hydrogen supply media.