Bismuth molybdate catalyst catalytic activities

In spite of the accumulated mechanistic investigations, it still seems difficult to explain why multicomponent bismuth molybdate catalysts show much better performances in both the oxidation and the ammoxidation of propylene and isobutylene. The catalytic activity has been increased almost 100 times compared to the simple binary oxide catalysts to result in the lowering of the reaction temperatures 60 80°C. The selectivities to the partially oxidized products have been also improved remarkably, corresponding to the improvements of the catalyst composition and reaction conditions. The reaction mechanism shown in Figs. 1 and 2 have been partly examined on the multicomponent bismuth molybdate catalysts. However, there has been no evidence to suggest different mechanisms on the multicomponent bismuth molybdate catalysts. 

Catalytic oxidation of propylene to acrolein was first discovered by the Shell group in 1948 on Cu20 catalyst (/). Both oxidation and ammoxidation were industrialized by the epoch-making discovery of bismuth molybdate catalyst by SOHIO (2-4). The bismuth molybdate catalyst was first reported in the form of a heteropoly compound supported on Si02, Bi P,Mo,2052/Si02 having Keggin structure but it was not the sole active species for the reactions. Several kinds of binary oxides between molybdenum trioxide and bismuth oxide have been known, as shown in the phase... 

Investigations into the scheelite-type catalyst gave much valuable information on the reaction mechanisms of the allylic oxidations of olefin and catalyst design. However, in spite of their high specific activity and selectivity, catalyst systems with scheelite structure have disappeared from the commercial plants for the oxidation and ammoxidation of propylene. This may be attributable to their moderate catalytic activity owing to lower specific surface area compared to the multicomponent bismuth molybdate catalyst having multiphase structure. 

Molybdenum comprises usually 50% or a little more of the total metallic elements. Most of molybdenum atoms form (Mo04)2 anion and make metal molybdates with other metallic elements. Sometimes a little more than the stoichiometric amount of molybdenum to form metal molybdate is included, forming free molybdenum trioxide. Since small amounts of molybdenum are sublimed continuously from the catalyst system under the working conditions, free molybdenum trioxide is important in supplying the molybdenum element to the active catalyst system, especially in the industrial catalyst system. In contrast, bismuth occupies a smaller proportion, forming bismuth molybdates for the active site of the reaction, and too much bismuth decreases catalytic activity somewhat. The roles of alkali metal and two other additives are very complicated. Unfortunately, few reports refer to these elements, except patents. In this article, discussion is directed only at the fundamental structure of the multicomponent bismuth molybdate catalyst system with multiphase in the following paragraphs. 

Choosing divalent and trivalent cations and determining the composition is the most important in designing the multicomponent bismuth molybdate catalyst system. Catalytic activities of typical tri- and tetracomponent bismuth molybdate catalysts having multiphase structure were reported for the oxidation of propylene to form acrolein (35, 36, 40-43, 97, 98). A typical example of the activity test is shown in Fig. 6. Summarizing the results shown in Fig. 6 and reported previously (30, 43, 44), the following trends are generally found. 

Fig. 6. Catalytic activity of multicomponent bismuth molybdate catalysts in the oxidation of propylene (41).

Interestingly, the replacement of a part of Co2+ in the Mo BiiConO, by another divalent cation, Ni2+ or Mg2+, does not improve the degree of participation of lattice oxide ion at all and only the lattice oxide ion in the bismuth molybdate phase is active in the MonBiiCosNijO or MonBhCoitMgjO, catalyst. It is noteworthy that the situation mentioned above corresponds exactly to the catalytic activity of the tri- and tetracomponent bismuth molybdate catalysts. 

Fig. 12. The catalytic activity forming acrolein per unit weight of the supported bismuth molybdate catalysts (52). (Q) Bi2MoiOi2/CoMo04 ( ) BjMo CWCOii/ijFei/nMoO,.

Some remarks must be made about the role of oxygen coordination. Several authors have remarked that the coordination in catalytic oxides is of major importance. Mitchell and Trifiro (e.g. ref. 219) concluded that a bismuth molybdate catalyst is most active if the amount of tetrahedrally coordinated molybdenum is large in comparison with octahedrally coordinated molybdenum. However, V205 and Sb2Os are structures with specific octahedral coordination [142] and often the coordination is changed by reduction of the catalyst or by the support [203]. In a- and /3-cobalt molybdates the coordination differs, but the catalytic behaviour is really the same. The low temperature Bi2Mo06 (7 phase) has an octahedral coordination but is an effective catalyst. 

Aykan (35) reported that ammoxidation of propylene occurred over a silica-supported bismuth molybdate catalyst in the absence of gas-phase oxygen, although the catalytic activity decreased rapidly with increasing catalyst reduction. The reduction process was followed by X-ray and it was found that phase changes which occurred in the catalyst and the decrease in catalytic activity corresponded quantitatively to the depletion of lattice oxygen. 

As a catalyst for propylene oxidation, Bi203 itself has fairly low activity and yields primarily the products of complete oxidation. Pure molybdenum trioxide has an even lower activity, but is fairly selective. In combination, however, remarkable activity and selectivity for propylene oxidation is obtained. Although industrial catalysts contain silica and phosphate as well as Bi203 and Mo03, many fundamental studies have employed catalysts containing only bismuth and molybdenum oxides in an attempt to determine the structure of the catalytically active phase. As a result of such studies, it is now known that bismuth molybdate catalysts display their superior properties only if the catalyst composition lies within the composition range of Bi/Mo = f to f (atomic ratio). 

The establishment of the structures and thermal transformations of the catalytically active phases of bismuth molybdate resulted in research directed toward investigating the stability of the structure under reducing conditions. Fattore et al. (38) investigated an unsupported bismuth molybdate catalyst with composition Bi2032.66M0O3 during propylene... 

The combination of these experimental findings indicate that active bismuth molybdate catalysts undergo phase transformations when exposed to reducing conditions similar to the conditions of catalysis. The phase transformations are highly dependent upon both temperature and the severity of the reducing atmosphere. However, the occurrence of solid state reactions in the catalysts suggests that the bulk structure of the catalysts plays an important role in catalytic reaction. 

Annenkova et al. (105) studied both the physicochemical and catalytic properties of the Bi-Fe-Mo oxide system. The X-ray diffraction, infrared spectroscopic, and thermographic measurements indicated that the catalysts were heterogeneous mixtures consisting principally of ferric molybdate, a-bismuth molybdate, and minor amounts of bismuth ferrite and molybdenum trioxide. The Bi-Fe-Mo oxide catalysts were more active in the oxidation of butene to butadiene and carbon dioxide than the bismuth molybdate catalysts. The addition of ferric oxide to bismuth molybdate was also found to increase the electrical conductivity of the catalyst. 

Molybdate-Based Catalysts. The first catalyst commercialized by SOHIO for the propylene ammoxidation process was bismuth phosphomolybdate, Bi9PMoi2052, supported on silica (9). The catalytically active and selective component of the catalyst is bismuth molybdate. In commercial fluid-bed operation, the bismuth molybdate catalyst is supported on silica to provide hardness and attrition resistance in the fluidizing environment. Bismuth molybdate catalysts can be prepared by a coprecipitation procedure using aqueous solutions of bismuth nitrate and ammonium molybdate (10). The catal3ret is produced by drying the precipitate and heat treating the dried particles to crystallize the bismuth molybdate phase. Heat treatment temperature for bismuth molybdate catalysts is generally arovmd 500°C. 

Finally, Arrhenius treatments of the catalytic data were examined for the HTAD synthesized substitutional series, Bi(2-2x) 2x 030i2, and the binary bismuth molybdate series where Bi/Mo ratios were varied fi-om pure Mo oxide to pure Bi oxide. The noteworthy aspect of the oxidation results is that in the most reactive regime of x = 0-5% atom fi-action Fe, before separate phase Fe3Mo30j2 begins to dominate the catalyst composition in the iron series, the apparent activation energies were all in the range of 19-20 kcal/mol. Furthermore, the activation energies for the pure Bi-Mo series were between 19-20 kcal/mol while the activities were considerable different. Thus, the chief difference in the reactivities in both series is in the preexponential factor, i.e. the number of active sites. 

The oxidation of propene to acrolein has been one of the most studied selective oxidation reaction. The catalysts used are usually pure bismuth molybdates owing to the fact that these phases are present in industrial catalysts and that they exhibit rather good catalytic properties (1). However the industrial catalysts also contain bivalent cation molybdates like cobalt, iron and nickel molybdates, the presence of which improves both the activity and the selectivity of the catdysts (2,3). This improvement of performances for a mixture of phases with respect to each phase component, designated synergy effect, has recently been attributed to a support effect of the bivalent cation molybdate on the bismuth molybdate (4) or to a synergy effect due to remote control (5) or to more or less strong interaction between phases (6). However, this was proposed only in view of kinetic data obtained on a prepared supported catalyst. 

These results and the comparison between the catalyst particles before and after catalytic run point out the ability for these particles both to exchange electrons and oxygen anions and to change morphology under the conditions of the catalytic reaction with spreading of the oxides one over the other. These two phenomena should be at the basis of the explanation of synergy effect in molybdates based catalysts. The fact that some FexCoi.xMo04 particles remain free (i.e. not deposited on bismuth molybdate particles) show that even more active and selective catalysts may be obtained in more reliable preparation conditions. 

Erom HRTEM studies, it is proposed that the majority of the bismuth molybdate phases can be derived from the fluorite structure, in which both the cation and anion vacancies can be accommodated within the fluorite framework (Buttrey et al 1987). Several industrial processes containing multicomponent bismuth molybdates may suffer loss of Mo oxides by volatilization under operating conditions, resulting in the loss of catalytic activity. Monitoring the catalyst microstructure using EM is therefore crucial to ensuring the continuity of these catalytic processes. 

During the history of a half century from the first discovery of the reaction (/) and 35 years after the industrialization (2-4), these catalytic reactions, so-called allylic oxidations of lower olefins (Table I), have been improved year by year. Drastic changes have been introduced to the catalyst composition and preparation as well as to the reaction process. As a result, the total yield of acrylic acid from propylene reaches more than 90% under industrial conditions and the single pass yield of acrylonitrile also exceeds 80% in the commercial plants. The practical catalysts employed in the commercial plants consist of complicated multicomponent metal oxide systems including bismuth molybdate or iron antimonate as the main component. These modern catalyst systems show much higher activity and selectivity... 

In the preceding section, we explained that the bulk diffusion of oxide ion plays an important role in the enhancement of the catalytic activity of the multicomponent bismuth molybdate systems. Here, another important role of the oxide ion migration in increasing the stability of the catalyst system is introduced. 

Some progress has been made in explaining the splendid catalytic performance of multicomponent bismuth molybdates that are used widely for the industrial oxidations and ammoxidations of lower olefin. We have seen that the catalytic activity and selectivity are greatly enhanced by the multifunctionalization of the catalyst systems. Many functions newly introduced are... 

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