Novel magnetic carbon supported molybdenum disulfide catalyst and its application in residue upgrading

A novel hybrid material consisted of carbon covered Fe3O4 nanoparticles and MoS2 nanoflower (FCM) was designed and prepared by micelle-assisted hydrothermal methods. Multiple techniques, including X-Ray diffraction (XRD), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were employed to characterize it. The results show that FCM has a flower-like morphology with a 330 nm Fe3O4 core as well as 70 nm highly crystalline MoS2 shell. FCM is superparamagnetic with a saturation magnetization of 35 emu g(-1). Then hydrocracking of Canadian bitumen residue (CBR) was applied to estimate its catalytic activity. The results show that FCM exhibits superior catalytic hydrocracking activity compared to bulk MoS2 and commercial oil-dispersed Mo(CO)(6) by the same Mo loading. Further measurement by elemental analysis, XPS and XRD reveals that the MoS2 nanoflower with abundant catalytic active sites and covered carbon layer with anti-coke ability donate to the superior upgrading performance. Besides, the catalysts can be easily recovered by the external magnetic field. This work provides a novel kind magnetic nanocatalyst which is potential for slurry-phase hydrocracking applications. (C) 2020, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communi-cations Co., Ltd