Supported Molybdenum Carbide Catalysts: Structure-Function Relationships for Hydrodenitrogenation

ABSTRACTEarly transition metal carbides and nitrides have been shown to be active for the hydrotreatment of model compounds and petroleum crudes. In this paper we describe our investigations of the structural and compositional properties of γ-Al2O3-supported molybdenum carbides and efforts to correlate these properties with their pyridine and quinoline hydrodenitrogenation (HDN) activities. The HDN activities of the materials scaled linearly with the loading and oxygen chemisorptive uptake. Oxygen chemisorption results also suggested that the molybdenum carbide particles were highly dispersed and perhaps raft-like. Using temperature programmed desorption and infrared spectroscopy of carbon monoxide, we were able to identify two types of sites on the carbides; sites “on top” of the particle and sites at the perimeter. We have tentatively concluded that the most active sites for HDN were “on top” of the supported carbide particles.