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Synthesis of Few Layer Amorphous 1T/2H MoS2 by a One-Step Ethanol/Water Solvothermal Method and Its Hydrodesulfurization Performance

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Abstract

Few layer (< 5 layers) MoS2 mixed with a 1T phase has the characteristics of a large specific surface area and an improved active site distribution. Therefore, it has been increasingly study for the catalytic hydrodesulfurization of polycyclic compounds. In this paper, few-layer MoS2 with a high proportion of the 1T phase is synthesized by a one-step solvothermal method using a green non-toxic ethanol/water solvent. Results show that few-layer MoS2 (3–5 layers) with a 1T phase up to 48% can be synthesized in a 50% ethanol solvent. This MoS2 is used to catalyse the hydrodesulfurization reaction of dibenzothiophene, and the target product conversion rate reaches 84.2%. Among them, biphenyl accounts for 70.2%, phenylcyclohexane accounts for 13.9%, and bicyclohexane accounts for 0.4%. According to the Hansen solubility parameter (HSP) distance Ra, the effects of solvents on the structure and morphology of MoS2 and the conversion of dibenzothiophene hydrodesulfurization are determined. This work is significant for the synchronous synthetic exfoliation of MoS2 with a controllable number of layers, a higher ratio of the 1T phase and good catalytic HDS of polycyclic compounds.

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Few layers and high proportion of 1T phase MoS2 by solvothermal synthesis for catalytic hydrodesulfurization of dibenzothiophene.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science of China (Grant Nos. 21166022, 21766033) and the foundation of Key Laboratory of Cleaner Transition of Coal & Chemicals Engineering of Xinjiang University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Chemical Engineering, Xinjiang University, Ürümqi, 830046, People’s Republic of China

    Jian Wei, He Huang, Qinglong Luo, Na Liu, Xueying Wang, Xuefeng Wang, Mei Zhong & Xueli Huang

  2. Key Laboratory of Cleaner Transition of Coal & Chemicals Engineering of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Ürümqi, 830046, People’s Republic of China

    Xuefeng Wang, Mei Zhong & Xueli Huang

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  1. Jian Wei
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  2. He Huang
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  3. Qinglong Luo
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  4. Na Liu
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  6. Xuefeng Wang
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Investigation, Methodology, Writing-original draft: JW; Methodology and performance characterization: HH; Revised manuscript and Methodology: QL; Supervision, Validation: NL; Investigation: XW; Investigation: XW; Investigation: MZ; Conceptualization, Writing—review & editing: XH (Corresponding author). All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xueli Huang.

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Wei, J., Huang, H., Luo, Q. et al. Synthesis of Few Layer Amorphous 1T/2H MoS2 by a One-Step Ethanol/Water Solvothermal Method and Its Hydrodesulfurization Performance. Catal Lett 152, 263–275 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10562-021-03621-9

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