Steerable Engineering of Nickel Molybdenum Carbonitride Nanostructures for Catalytic Regioselectivity Cleavage of C–O and C–C Bonds in Deoxygenation of Methyl Palmitate

The rational exploit of fatty esters to obtain clean fuels can effectively solve the problems of energy depletion and carbon emission. The challenges are the optimal catalytic process and the development of highly efficient catalysts for the removal of oxygen from fatty esters in bioenergy. Herein, nickel molybdenum carbonitride (NixMoCN) nanostructures with low cost and Pt-like properties are simply obtained from one-step pyrolysis of a self-assembly NiMo-based organic–inorganic precursor and tested in the deoxygenation of methyl palmitate. The introduced Ni plays a great role in the phase composition and catalytic properties of NixMoCN with steerable nanoheterostructures. Regioselectivity cleavage of C–O and C–C bonds exists over NixMoCN nanocatalysts. The optimal Ni0.30MoCN with 49% β-Mo2C and 51% Ni2Mo3N shows 98.3% conversion and 100% deoxygenation degree, which are much higher than those of MoCN with a β-Mo2C phase (only 12.4% conversion and 51% deoxygenation degree at a contact time 0.35 min under 300 °C and 0.1 MPa). The main reaction route over the MoCN nanocatalyst is hydrodeoxygenation of methyl palmitate, while the hydrodeoxygenation and decarbonylation/decarboxylation of methyl palmitate compete over the Ni0.30MoCN nanocatalyst.