Journal of Energy Chemistry

Journal of Energy Chemistry ›› 2022, Vol. 73 ›› Issue (10): 68-87.DOI: 10.1016/j.jechem.2022.05.014

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Molybdenum carbide as catalyst in biomass derivatives conversion

Xiangze Dua,b, Rui Zhangc, Dan Lia,*, Changwei Hua, Hermenegildo Garciab,*   

  1. aKey Laboratory of Green Chemistry and Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610064, Sichuan, China;
    bInstituto Universitario de Tecnología Química, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.-Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Av. De los Naranjos s/n, Valencia 46022, Spain;
    cDepartment of Chemistry, University of Helsinki, A. I. Virtasen Aukio 1, P.O. Box 55, 00014, Finland
  • Received:2022-03-09 Revised:2022-04-19 Accepted:2022-05-06 Online:2022-10-15 Published:2022-10-24
  • Contact: *E-mail addresses:danli@scu.edu.cn (D. Li), hgarcia@qim.upv.es (H. Garcia).
  • About author:Xiangze Du got his BSc from Sichuan University in June 2017. He is currently a PhD candidate in Professor Changwei Hu's group. He studied as a visiting student in Professor Hermenegildo García's group at the Instituto de Tecnología Química of the Technical University of Valencia. His research intrinests focus on the catalytic upgrading for biomass derivatives, including thermo-catalysis and photocatalysis approaches.
    Rui Zhang received her BSc degree (2014) and MSc degree (2017) in Professor Changwei Hu's group from Sichuan University. She is conducting her PhD research in University of Helsinki, where she joined in February 2018 under the guidance of Professor Timo Repo. Her research interest focuses on the catalytic valorization of lignocellulosic biomass, in particular by synthetic strategies.
    Dan Li is an associate Professor of College of Chemistry, Sichuan University. She got her BSc degree and MSc degree from Chongqing University in 2002 and 2005, respectively. She received a PhD degree in physical chemistry from Nanjing University in 2011. Her research interest mainly focuses on the synthesis and deep characterization of mesoporous materials in heterogeneous catalysis and biomass conversion.
    Changwei Hu is a professor in the College of Chemistry, Sichuan University, China. He got his Ph.D. degree in Physical Chemistry at Sichuan University in 1996. He is a Member of the Board of Directors of the Chinese Chemical Society, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a Member of the Scientific Board of the International Sustainable Chemistry Collaborative Cen-tre (ISC3), Excellent National Teacher of Teaching (China), and Special Allowances Expert of the State Council, China. His current research interests include the catalytic conversion of bio-based materials (bio-oil, sugars, raw algae, and lignocellulosic biomass) into fuels and useful chemicals; catalytic functionalization of C-H bonds from the viewpoint of atom economy; catalytic activation of small molecules (CO, CO2, CH4, and light alkanes.); molecular modeling on catalytic systems; and other green chemistry interrelated researches. He has published more than 340 papers in peer-reviewed journals, with more than 6000 citations, and authored 33 patents. He is now the director of the Key Laboratory of Green Chemistry and Technology, MOE (China).
    Hermenegildo García is full Professor at the Instituto de Tecnología Química of the Technical University of Valencia and Honorary Adjunct Professor at the Center of Excellence in Advanced Materials Research of King Abdullaziz University. Prof. Garcia has been active in the field of heterogeneous catalysis working with porous catalysts and NPs, as well as in the photocatalytic pro-duction of solar fuels having published over 800 articles. Prof. Garcia is Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Bucharest, Spanish National Research award in 2021, 2011 Janssen-Cilag award of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry, the 2016 Jaume I prize for Novel Tech-nologies, the Lifetime achievement award by the VDGOOD Professional Association, Trivandrum in 2021, the 2021 Yueqi Award by the Chinese University of Mining Technology, Xuzhou, Medal Lecturer in 2021 awarded by the International Asso-ciation for Advanced Materials.

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Abstract: The present energy dilemma in conjunction with the adverse environmental impacts caused by fossil fuel combustion motivates researchers to seek for new renewable energy with minimal CO2 footprint. As a practice pathway, it is of significance to produce biofuel and platform chemicals from sustainable biomass resources. However, the research and development of high-efficiency catalysts remain one key scientific challenge. Among the catalysts developed, transition metal carbides, especially molybdenum carbide, show promising performances on biomass-based conversion. Significant efforts have been made in past few decades on tuning the structure and electronic property of molybdenum carbide via controlling particle size and morphology, metal and nonmetal doping and vacancies, etc. The review summarizes recent developments of molybdenum carbide as catalysts in converting biomass into fuel, mainly focused on the preparation methods, the structure-dependent effects and the electronic modulation. The controllable selective cleavage of C-C, C-O and C-H bonds over modified molybdenum carbides that has been demonstrated in the conversion of biomass feedstocks is then highlighted. In addition, the possible deactivation mechanisms of molybdenum carbide are also presented in the review. This review provides systematic and fundamental information for the further design and development of molybdenum carbide for the conversion of biomass resources.

Key words: Molybdenum carbide, Synthesis, Modification, Hydrogenation, Biomass, Selective cleavage