Calixarene-functionalized MoS2 nanoparticles as catalysts for HDS reactions

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Legislative regulations and decreasing quality of global oil feedstocks require all the more active catalysts for the desulfurization of petroleum products. Materials for hydrodesulfurization (HDS) based on molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) represent a rapidly growing area of industrial application and academic research for HDS catalysis. A crucial aspect is to obtain a high surface area to facilitate catalytic activity, and to stabilize small particle sizes during catalysis under high temperature reducing conditions. Based on the synthesis of small, high quality MoS2 nanoparticles that I have synthesized during my PhD thesis, I aim to incorporate these building blocks to synthesize catalytically active and robust structures that retain their high activity and selectivity under working catalysis conditions. My goal is to create catalytic structure-function understanding that will serve as a foundation for developing my academic career. I seek to perform postdoctoral studies in the research group of Professor Katz at University of California, Berkeley because this group is a world leader in the surface functionalization of clusters and nanoparticles with calixarene ligands, which act as sterically bulky ligands that prevent agglomeration and create free coordination sites at the surface simultaneously. The group of Alexander Katz has demonstrated that the combination of very bulky ligands and very small nanoparticles lead to a situation that the ligands cannot cover the particle's surface completely. Coordinatively unsaturated sites are the result, which are predicted to be crucial for stabilizing highly active and interesting sites for hydrodesulfurization catalysis. Furthermore, functional groups (electron donating or withdrawing) at the calixarene ligand can influence the electronic structure of the nanoparticle and therefore also their catalytic properties, as well as incorporation of crucial nickel components to the MoS2-based nanoparticles.