molting vs sloughing

molting and sloughing both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
molting	Yes	No	No	No
sloughing	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, sloughing is a hypernym of molting; that is, sloughing is a word with a broader meaning than molting:

molting: periodic shedding of the cuticle in arthropods or the outer skin in reptiles
sloughing: the process whereby something is shed

Other hypernyms of molting include shedding.

molting (noun)	sloughing (noun)
periodic shedding of the cuticle in arthropods or the outer skin in reptiles	the process whereby something is shed