Preparation and catalytic hydrogenation performance of molybdenum disulfide composites pillared by hydroxy-aluminum oligocations

The molybdenum disulfide composite material pillared by hydroxy-aluminum oligocations, [Al13O4(OH)(24)(H2O)(12)](7+) (denoted as Al-13(7+)), with the basal interlayer space from 1.488 to 1.599 nm was prepared by intercalating A 13 into the interlayers of molybdenum disulfide through the single-molecular-layer technology. The pillared composite was characterized by X-ray diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The results showed that Al-13(7+) can be used as a stable pillaring agent after aging at 60 degrees C for two days, and a pillared composite with uniform pillared species and high crystallinity can be obtained at a smaller molar ratio of Al/Mo in the reaction system. Compared with the pristine 2H-MoS2 the pillared composite exhibited larger interlayer space, smaller crystallite size, and larger specific surface area. The DSC test showed that the pillared composite had better thermal stability. The liquid-phase benzene hydrogenation was used as the probe reaction to examine the catalytic activity of the pillared composite. The gas chromatography test showed that the catalytic activity of the pillared composite was evidently superior to that of the pristine 2H-MoS2 and the Raney Ni catalysts widely used in industry. This was attributed to the more catalytically active sites derived from the larger surface area and more defects of the materials, and the effective adsorption of hydrogen.