“…Indirect methods probing acidity: H/D exchange, [43,75,80] 1 H NMR, [94,121] Al NMR, [108][109][110] NH 3 -TPD [52,77,111,112] and probing adsorbed molecules by FTIR, [40,113] Acid sites partly blocked by coke, which forms together with the transformation of Mo to its active phase Dispersion Location Nuclearity UV-Vis, [67,68,97] UV-Raman [79,99,108] Difficult to get information on reduced/carbidic structures 13 C NMR Signal rather broad Probing adsorbed molecules by FTIR [87,88] Only indirect information from full width at half maximum and together with theoretical calculation. Access can be blocked by coke H 2 -TPR [115] Indirect method, nuclearity has to be inferred from reducibility Stoichiometry 13 C NMR, DNP 13 C NMR Signal rather broad Information about removed oxygen: Temperature programmed reaction using CH 4 [114] There will not only be carbidic carbon deposition but also carbonaceous carbon Information about deposited carbon: Temperature programmed reaction using CO Geometry XANES [31,40,98] Bulk technique, only an average over many structures is observed EXAFS [31,40] No long range structure for well dispersed species, only bulk Mo 2 C observed Charge XANES [30,39,70] Bulk technique, only an average over many structures is observed EPR [94,95] Only information about paramagnetic species XPS [7,100] Surface sensitive, only information about the surface is obtained Probing adsorbed...…”