Reactive and Non-reactive Interactions of Thiophene with WS2 Fullerene-like Nanoparticles: An Ultra-high Vacuum Surface Chemistry Study

Abstract

The adsorption kinetics of thiophene on WS 2 nanoparticles with fullerene-like (onion-like) structure has been studied at ultra-high vacuum conditions by sample temperature ramping techniques. At low temperatures, thiophene adsorbs molecularly. The formation of H 2 S and alkanes is evident at greater temperatures on fully sulfided as well as reduced and oxidized WS 2 nanoparticles.

Adsorption and reaction kinetics of small organic molecules on WS2 nanotubes: An ultra-high vacuum study

“…Similar experiments for the WS 2 NP revealed HDS activity only above 500 K (see Ref. [3]). A number of blind experiments have been conducted and it appears that a distinct catalytic activity is only present when H 2 is dissociated with the hot W filament and hydrogen and thiophene are dosed on the surface simultaneously.…”

“…3III and IV from Ref. [3]). In this case, only one TDS peak appears in the monolayer adsorption region (a peak), and the common condensation peak (D peak) is seen at large exposures.…”

“…However, only very few ultra-high vacuum (UHV) model studies are available for inorganic nanotubes. As part of a long-term project, we conducted UHV kinetics experiments with WS 2 and MoS 2 inorganic fullerene-like nanoparticles (NP) to characterize the catalytic properties of these new materials for processes such as the hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of sulphur containing compounds, using thiophene as the probe molecule [3,4]. Micro-size Mo and W sulphide particles are used in the industrial HDS process [5,6].…”

Adsorption of Thiophene on Inorganic MoS2 Fullerene-Like Nanoparticles

“…Assuming a standard preexponential of 1 9 10 13 /s results in binding energies of 46 and 52 kJ/mol for the S and Mo TDS features (at *180 and *200 K), respectively. Slightly larger binding energies of 60 kJ/mol have recently been determined for thiophene/IF-WS 2 [7].…”

“…However, recently the application of nanomaterials for hydrodesulfurization (HDS) has been studied by a number of groups: clean [3] and metal supported carbon nanotubes [4][5][6] as well as IF-WS 2 [7] and MoS 2 /WS 2 nanotubes [8,9] were considered. In this study we explore the application of IF-MoS 2 in catalysis for processes such as the HDS of sulfur containing compounds.…”