In Situ Carbon-Confined MoSe Catalyst with Heterojunction for Highly Selective CO Hydrogenation to Methanol.

The synthesis of methanol from CO hydrogenation is an effective measure to deal with global climate change and an important route for the chemical fixation of CO. In this work, carbon-confined MoSe (MoSe@C) catalysts were prepared by in situ pyrolysis using glucose as a carbon source. The physico-chemical properties and catalytic performance of CO hydrogenation to yield methanol were compared with MoSe and MoSe/C. The results of the structure characterization showed MoSe displayed few layers and a small particle size. Owing to the synergistic effect of the MoC-MoSe heterojunction and in situ carbon doping, MoSe@C with a suitable C/Mo mole ratio in the precursor showed excellent catalytic performance in the synthesis of methanol from CO hydrogenation. Under the optimal catalyst MoSe@C-55, the selectivity of methanol reached 93.7% at a 9.7% conversion of CO under optimized reaction conditions, and its catalytic performance was maintained without deactivation during a continuous reaction of 100 h. In situ diffuse infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy studies suggested that formate and CO were the key intermediates in CO hydrogenation to methanol.