Deoxygenation of glycolaldehyde and furfural on Mo2C/Mo(100)

The desire to produce fuels and chemicals in an energy conscious, environmentally sympathetic approach has motivated considerable research on the use of cellulosic biomass feedstocks. One of the major challenges facing the utilization of biomass is finding effective catalysts for the efficient and selective removal of oxygen from the highly-oxygenated, biomass-derived platform molecules. Herein, a study of the reaction pathways for the biomass-derived platform molecule furfural and biomass-derived sugar model compound glycolaldehyde provides insight into the mechanisms of hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) on a model molybdenum carbide catalyst, Mo2C/Mo(100). Using temperature programmed desorption (TPD) and high resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy (HREELS), it was found that the Mo2C/Mo(100) catalyst was active for selective deoxygenation of the aldehyde carbonyl by facilitating adsorption of the aldehyde in an η2(C,O) bonding configuration. Furthermore, the catalyst showed no appreciable activity for furanic ring hydrogenation, highlighting the promise of relatively inexpensive Mo2C catalysts for selective HDO chemistry.