Highly Active Molybdenum Dioxide Catalysts for the Partial Oxidation of Biodiesel

Molybdenum dioxide (MoO₂) catalysts exhibit high activity for the production of syngas via partial oxidation of biodiesel. Our findings indicate that commercial and nanoparticle MoO₂ catalysts display similar activity at 850°C, 1 atm and O₂/C = 0.7, with conversions higher than 95% and hydrogen yields of 40%. However, the addition of small amounts of nickel in the catalyst composition appears to significantly increase the hydrogen production and the conversion to 50% and 100%, respectively. The catalyst performance displays high sensitivity to the reducing strength of reforming environment. Thus, when the O₂/C ratio was reduced to 0.5 the MoO₂ catalyst showed the highest performance with a hydrogen yield of 80% and a conversion of 100%. The synergistic effect observed for Ni-promoted MoO₂ catalysts can be attributed to the combination of active sites which increase the catalyst ability to break not only C-C but also C-H bonds.