Vibrational Spectroscopic Studies of Molybdena Dispersed on Ceria Support

Abstract

Diffuse Reflectance Infrared Fourier Transform (DRIFT) and FT-Raman spectra have been used to investigate the interactions between molybdena and ceria in MoO₃/CeO₂ samples with different Mo loadings. The spectra exhibit a weak Mo=O broad band of surface species at ca. 920–970 cm^?1, which reveals that the interaction between dispersed molybdena and ceria could be mainly ionic in nature. With the increasing of Mo loadings, the observed Mo=O band broadening and frequency shifting are due to the overlapping and condensation of different hydrated surface species. On the basis of the measured surface dispersion capacity of morybdena and the structure of the preferentially exposed (111) plane of ceria, it is reasonable to suggest that the Mo⁶⁺ cations and the accompanying O²- anions are incorporated into the surface available vacant sites of CeO₂, accordingly the dispersed molybdena species are interacted electrostatically with the support instead of only physically dispersed on the surface of it.