CO-resistant hydrogenation over noble metal/α-MoC catalyst

"Hydrogenation by crude H₂ - dehydrogenation to produce pure H₂" strategy using liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs) can reduce the cost and shorten the process of hydrogen purification and utilization. The critical challenge is to eliminate catalyst poisoning by CO impurity in crude H₂. Here, we develop a Pd/α-MoC catalyst that enables efficient hydrogenation of N-LOHCs under crude hydrogen feeds (CO concentration>5 vol%) below 150 °C, and has an activity 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than that of traditional Pd-based catalysts. The CO-resistant hydrogenation is also successfully conducted in the models of industrial crude H₂ including CO, CO₂ and CH₄. Water, as solvent, contributes greatly to the hydrogenation activity against CO poisoning, since the utilization of low-temperature water gas shift (WGS) reaction. Moreover, the positive-charged Pd species hinder the combination of H* from WGS reaction and suppressed the undesirable H₂ formation and release, which explains the substantial improvement in the performance of Pd/α-MoC compared to that of Pt/α-MoC.