A noble-metal-free catalyst with MoC nanorod for low-temperature water gas shift reaction

Water gas shift (WGS) reaction is an important process to remove CO contaminant in industrial hydrogen resources. The efficient catalyst that can work at low temperature is keenly desired to achieve high CO conversion from the viewpoint of thermodynamic equilibrium. Here, we develop a noble-metal-free catalyst of MoC nanorod (MoC NR) with the dominant (2   0   0) facet for the low-temperature WGS reaction. It exhibits a high performance with ∼ 100 % CO conversion at 175 °C, better than conventional MoC with the dominant (1   1   1) facet or the commercial Cu-based catalyst. Moreover, it shows rather better stability due to the presence of the dominant (2   0   0) facet. Various characterizations demonstrate that this facet facilitates MoC NR possessing higher removal capability of surface oxygen species to enhance the stability and lower activation energy to endow higher performance compared with conventional MoC. This study provides important implications for the rational design of cost-effective catalysts for the low-temperature WGS reaction.