and elemental composition of the sulfide and spent catalysts were
determined by STEM and EDX mapping using a probe-corrected JEOL ARM
200F transmission electron microscope operating at an acceleration
voltage of 200 kV. The preparation of the sulfide and spent samples
was conducted in a glovebox, specifically, around 5 mg of catalyst
sample were dispersed in n-hexane to make a suspension, a few droplets
of which was then placed on a Cu grid. The grid was then transported
to STEM. The mean length of individual MoS2 platelets and
the average number of layers per particle were calculated from acquired
STEM images using ImageJ. The mean length was determined by fitting
a log-normal function to the platelets size distribution. The degree
of stacking (N) was calculated according to
and ni is the amount
of individual MoS2 platelets counted for a given number
of layers Ni.
The
local elemental distribution in the sulfide and spent catalysts was
determined by STEM-EDX mapping using the same JEOL ARM 200F by means
of a 100 mm2 (1 srad) Centurio SDD EDX detector. The correlation
between Mo and Ni was calculated via MATLAB, as shown in
in the