Investigation of the Active Phases in Alkali Metal Promoted Molybdenum Sulfide Catalysts for the Synthesis of Methanethiol from Syngas and Hydrogen Sulfide

摘要

Methanethiol (CH3SH) is an important industrial raw material widely used in the synthesis of valuable organosulfur compounds such as pesticides, pharmaceuticals and petrochemicals [1]. A state-of-art production method for CH3SH is the thiolation of methanol (CH3OH) over transition metal sulfide catalysts [2]. Even if the production of CH3SH is an efficient process involving high CH3OH conversion and CH3SH yield, this route needs a multi-step pathway for the synthesis of CH3SH, which results in high production cost. Considering that CH3OH is generated from syngas (CO and H2), Olin et al. [3] proposed to synthesize CH3SH directly from H2S- containing syngas. The benchmark catalysts for this reaction are alkali metal promoted molybdenum sulfide (MoS2) supported on silica or alumina [4].