The modification of molybdenum carbide catalysts by another transition metal has raised an increasing research interest due to the significant improvement of catalyst activity in hydrodeoxygenation of lignin derivatives. At par with the commonly used Co and Ni that add a strong hydrogenation functionality, it was found that the addition of the more oxophilic W restricts ring hydrogenation while allowing the deoxygenation of oxygenated compounds and thus yielding higher selectivity toward the formation of non-oxygenated aromatic compounds. The coexistence of Mo2C with W2C along with metallic W altered the electronic properties of Mo2C which resulted in an increase of catalyst active site density and facilitated further total eugenol deoxygenation. Propyl-benzene selectivity of up to 83% was reached at close to 100% eugenol conversion. These findings will allow a better overview of the effect of different metal phases of mixed carbides on the catalyst performance and raise the prospect of optimizing catalyst design for a hydrodeoxygenation processing of lignins depolymerization products.
Keywords: Molybdenum carbide Tungsten carbide Hydrodeoxygenation Lignin model compounds Oxophilic metal.
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