Selective Reduction of Carboxylic Acids to Aldehydes with Promoted MoO3 Catalysts

Selective activation of renewable carboxylic acids on promoted molybdenum oxides to form alcohols and aldehydes is reported. A combination of reaction kinetics, temperature-programmed reduction (TPR), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) reveals that the activity scales with the concentration of Mo5+ active sites and is a strong function of surface hydrogen coverage. The addition of a very small loading (0.05 wt %) of Pt drastically increases rates of selective deoxygenation at lower temperatures (