Issue 15, 2024

Rapid synthesis of high-purity molybdenum carbide with controlled crystal phases

Abstract

The synthesis of phase-pure carbide nanomaterials is crucial for understanding their structure–performance relationships, and for advancing their application in catalysis. Molybdenum carbides, in particular, have garnered increasing interest due to their Pt-like surface electronic properties and high catalytic activity. Traditional methods for synthesizing molybdenum carbide are often lengthy and energy-intensive, leading to an uncontrolled phase, low purity, and excessive carbon coverage, which hinder their catalytic performance improvement. This work introduces a novel pulsed Joule heating (PJH) technique that overcomes these limitations, enabling the controlled synthesis of high-purity molybdenum carbides (β-Mo2C, η-MoC1−x, and α-MoC1−x) within seconds by using MoOx/4-Cl-o-phenylenediamine as the hybrid precursor. The PJH method allows precise control over the diffusion of carbon species in the Mo–C system, resulting in a significantly improved phase purity of up to 96.89 wt%. Moreover, the electronic structure of platinum catalysts on molybdenum carbide was modulated through electron metal–support interaction (EMSI) between Pt and MoxC, and contributed to enhanced catalytic performance compared to carbon-supported Pt catalysts during the hydrogen evolution reaction. Overall, this work paves the way for efficient production of high-quality molybdenum carbide nanomaterials, and thus is expected to accelerate their industrial deployments in practical catalytic reactions.

Graphical abstract: Rapid synthesis of high-purity molybdenum carbide with controlled crystal phases

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
29 Feb 2024
Accepted
03 May 2024
First published
07 May 2024

Mater. Horiz., 2024,11, 3595-3603

Rapid synthesis of high-purity molybdenum carbide with controlled crystal phases

R. Fang, H. He, Z. Wang, Y. Han and F. R. Fan, Mater. Horiz., 2024, 11, 3595 DOI: 10.1039/D4MH00225C

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