Catalytic propylene oxidation reaction models

The present chapter will primarily focus on oxidation reactions over supported vanadia catalysts because of the widespread applications of these interesting catalytic materials.5 6,22 24 Although this article is limited to well-defined supported vanadia catalysts, the supported vanadia catalysts are model catalyst systems that are also representative of other supported metal oxide catalysts employed in oxidation reactions (e.g., Mo, Cr, Re, etc.).25 26 The key chemical probe reaction to be employed in this chapter will be methanol oxidation to formaldehyde, but other oxidation reactions will also be discussed (methane oxidation to formaldehyde, propane oxidation to propylene, butane oxidation to maleic anhydride, CO oxidation to C02, S02 oxidation to S03 and the selective catalytic reduction of NOx with NH3 to N2 and H20). This chapter will combine the molecular structural and reactivity information of well-defined supported vanadia catalysts in order to develop the molecular structure-reactivity relationships for these oxidation catalysts. The molecular structure-reactivity relationships represent the molecular ingredients required for the molecular engineering of supported metal oxide catalysts. 

As can be seen in Table 11.1, noble metals Pt, Pd, and Rh are the most usable catalysts in calorimetric gas sensors designed. It was established that of all the catalysts known they have the highest activity with respect to oxidation of combustible gases (see Fig. 11.2) and provide acceptable operation temperatures. Morooka and coworkers (Morooka and Ozaki 1966 Morooka et al. 1967) showed that activity for a model reaction, propylene oxidation, correlates with the strength of the metal-oxygen (M-0) bond. Because an LEL sensor must oxidize all ambient hydrocarbon species, the highest activity catalysts hold the most promise for the application. Therefore, the choice of palladium and platinum and sometimes rhodium for application in combustion gas sensors is natural (Miller 2001). This explains why the automobile exhaust system is treated with platinum or palladium compounds and is called a catalytic converter. 

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