Oxygen Healing and CO2 /H2 /Anisole Dissociation on Reduced Molybdenum Oxide Surfaces Studied by Density Functional Theory

Reduced molybdenum oxides are versatile catalysts for deoxygenation and hydrodeoxygenation reactions. In this work, we have performed spin-polarized DFT calculations to investigate oxygen healing energies on reduced molybdenum oxides (reduced α-MoO₃ , γ-Mo₄ O₁₁ and MoO₂ ). We find that Mo⁺⁴ on MoO₂ (100) is the most active for abstracting an oxygen from the oxygenated compounds. We further explored CO₂ adsorption and dissociation on reduced α-MoO₃ (010) and MoO₂ (100). In comparison to reduced α-MoO₃ (010), CO₂ adsorbs more strongly on MoO₂ (100). We find that CO₂ dissociates on MoO₂ (100) via a two-step process, the overall barrier for which is 0.6 eV. This barrier is 1.7 eV lower than that on reduced α-MoO₃ (010), suggesting a much higher activity for deoxygenation of CO₂ to CO. As H₂ dissociation is shown to be the rate-limiting step for hydrodeoxygenation reactions, we also studied activation barriers for H₂ chemisorption on MoO₂ (100). We find that the chemisorption barriers are 0.7 eV lower than that reported on reduced α-MoO₃ (010). Finally, we have studied the dissociation (C-O cleavage) of anisole (a lignin-based biofuel model compound) on MoO₂ (100). We find that anisole binds very strongly on MoO₂ (100) with an adsorption energy of -1.47 eV. According to Sabatier's principle, strongly adsorbing reactants poison the catalyst surface, which may explain the low activity of MoO₂ observed during experiments for hydrodeoxygenation of anisole.

Formation of Formic Acid from Glucose with Simultaneous Conversion of Ag2O to Ag under Mild Hydrothermal Conditions

Formation of formic acid from renewable biomass resources is of great interest since formic acid is a widely used platform chemical and has recently been regarded as an important liquid hydrogen carrier. Herein, a novel approach is reported for the conversion of glucose, the constituent carbohydrate from the cellulose fraction of biomass, to formic acid under mild hydrothermal conditions with simultaneous reduction of Ag2O to Ag. Results showed that glucose was selectively converted to formic acid with an optimum yield of 40.7% and glycolic acid with a yield of 6.1% with 53.2% glucose converting to carbon dioxide (CO2) immediately at a mild reaction temperature of 135 °C for 30 min. In addition, Ag2O was used as a solid oxidant for glucose oxidation, which avoids the use of traditionally dangerous liquid oxidant H2O2. Furthermore, complete conversion of Ag2O to Ag can be achieved. This study not only developed a new method for value-added chemical production from renewable biomass but also explored an alternative low-carbon and energy-saving route for silver extraction and recovery.

DFT study of phenol alkylation with propylene on H-BEA in the absence and presence of water

Water reduces the activation barrier of the rate-limiting step of phenol alkylation with propylene in H-BEA. This, in turn, increases the transition-state theory rate coefficient by two orders-of-magnitude, suggesting much faster alkylation.

A green and energy-efficient photocatalytic process for the accelerated synthesis of lactic acid esters using functionalized quantum dots

Sulphonated-grafted-titania quantum dot catalyzed green and energy-efficient photochemical process for the synthesis of valuable lactic acid esters at ambient temperature.