Catalysis Science & Technology Blog

MoS₂ is a widely used catalyst in hydrotreatment processes, like hydrodesulfidation (HDS) and CO hydrogenation, for the production of cleaner fuels in the oil refining industry.

Hydrotreatment catalysts are probably the best described among the heterogeneous catalysts, but up until now the exact nature of the active sites for HDS on MoS₂ platelets dispersed on metal oxide supports characterized by a low degree of structural definition has not been fully characterized.

Italian researchers have obtained supported MoS₂ model systems from the supported oxide precursor phase on three different metal oxides.  The adopted procedure is based on the use of CS₂ instead of the classical H₂S/H₂ mixture in an autoclave.  The method  is very simple and leads to complete sulfidation of the supported MoO₃ phase, suggesting that CS₂ has the dual function of a sulfiding and reducing agent.

The structure of the supported MoS₂ phase was characterized by means of several complementary techniques: X-ray Powder Diffraction (XRPD), X-ray absorption (XAS), Raman and UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopy, which gave information on the structural, vibrational and electronic properties of MoS₂, whereas Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) was adopted to determine the morphology of the supported particles.

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