MoSe2: a promising non-noble metal catalyst for direct ethanol synthesis from syngas

Abstract

Direct synthesis of ethanol from syngas (a mixture of H2 and CO) is considered as an eco-friendly and industrially important process to produce renewable fuels and chemicals. The current non-noble metal catalyst systems suffer from either low selectivity or multiple processes with high energy consumption. Here, we report a novel molybdenum diselenide-based catalyst system for high-selective conversion of syngas into ethanol. For a series of K-promoted MoSe2 catalysts with different K/Mo ratios (Kx-MoSe2, x = 0.25-1.00), K1.00-MoSe2 surprisingly exhibits excellent ethanol selectivity up to 58.7 Cmol% in total alcohols and 31.1 Cmol% in the total product, which is higher than the highest selectivity value for the non-noble metal catalysts reported in the literature. The high ethanol selectivity is attributed to the formation of K-Mo-Se active phase and the synergistic effect of the MoIV, MoV and MoVI multivalent species in the active phase. This study opens up a highly selective non-noble metal catalyst system for the direct synthesis of ethanol by syngas, which is of practical significance for the catalytic conversion of hydrogen-poor syngas.