Design of grain boundaries enriched nickel molybdate for enhanced catalytic oxidative desulfurization

Grain boundaries (GB), a favorable atomic configuration, can provide highly active surfaces by modulating electronic structures in the catalysts. Whereas, it is usually be ignored owing to the large structural variations and the difficulty in its precise design. Herein, a novel strategy is proposed to prepare nickel molybdate with rich GB (RGB-NMO) via a facile one-step growth assisted by cetyltrimethylammonium bromide. Experimental results reveal that the optimized morphology can increase the exposure of active sites and facilitate the mass transfer during the oxidative desulfurization (ODS) reaction. Moreover, the engineered GB can modulate the surface atomic composition and electronic structure, leading to the increase of hydrogen peroxide activation capacity. Benefiting from these features, the synthesized RGB-NMO not only exhibits attractive desulfurization efficiency, but also shows a satisfactory cycling stability. Overall, this manuscript provides new inspirations for design of functional materials rich in GB towards excellent ODS treatment. [Display omitted] •RGB-NMO was prepared via a facile one-step growth assisted by CTAB.•GB were built by the alternative arrangement of various crystalline phases.•The electronic structure and oxygen vacancy are adjusted by GB engineering.•Removal of DBT can reach 100% by RGB-NMO but only 41.6% by LGB-NMO.•RGB-NMO showed superior cycling stability even after 14 cycles.