Vanadium oxide surface species, selectivity

Recent studies of supported vanadium oxide catalysts have revealed that the vanadium oxide component is present as a two-dimensional metal oxide overlayer on oxide supports (1). These surface vanadium oxide species are more selective than bulk, crystalline V2O5 for the partial oxidation of hydrocarbons (2). The molecular structures of the surface vanadium oxide species, however, have not been resolved (1,3,4). A characterization technique that has provided important information and insight into the molecular structures of surface metal oxide species is Raman spectroscopy (2,5). The molecular structures of metal oxides can be determined from Raman spectroscopy through the use of group theory, polarization data, and comparison of the... 

The surface vanadium oxide species on silica, water-treated silica, alumina, ceria, titania, zirconia, niobia and titania-silica have been characterized and studied for the selective oxidation of ethane. 

This paper summarized our current understanding of the factors that determine selectivity for dehydrogenation versus formation of oxygen-containing products in the oxidation of light alkanes. From the patterns of product distribution in the oxidation of C2 to C6 alkanes obtained with supported vanadium oxide, orthovanadates of cations of different reduction potentials, and vanadates of different bonding units of VO in the active sites, it was shown that the selectivities can be explained by the probability of the surface alkyl species (or the... 

Analysis of structure-activity relationships shows that various species characterized by different reactivities exist on the surface of vanadium oxide-based catalysts.339 The redox cycle between V5+ and V4+ is generally accepted to play a key role in the reaction mechanism, although opposite relationships between activity and selectivity, and reducibility were established. More recent studies with zirconia-supported vanadium oxide catalysts showed that vanadium is present in the form of isolated vanadyl species or oligomeric vanadates depending on the loading.345,346 The maximum catalytic activity was observed for catalysts with vanadia content of 3-5 mol% for which highly dispersed polyvanadate species are dominant. 

An important concept, first developed by Callahan and Grasselli (70) is the "site-isolation" theory, which requires that the active oxygen species is present in isolated regions on the catalyst surface, in order to obtain high selectivity to the desired product. In this case, the presence of diluted V sites provides centres for paraffin activation, while bulk vanadium oxide is responsible for side undesired combustion reactions (32). 

Such a catalyst is well known for several reactions, such as o-xylene oxidation to phthalic anhydride and selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of NO by ammonia. The anatase form of TiO appears to be better than the rutile form. Such catalysts with 1 and 8 wt% V20s/anatase was prepared by Rhone-Poulenc (S 10 m g ) for an exercise of characterization by 25 different european laboratories. All results are assembled in one issue of Catalysis Today published in May 1994, vol. 20 n°l. Surface vanadium species were observed to exist in three different forms monomeric V04 species, polymeric vanadate species and V2O5 crystallites [27], the relative amount of which depended on initial wt % V20s/anatase and on the subsequent selective dissolution treatment. 

Supported metal oxides are currently being used in a large number of industrial applications. The oxidation of alkanes is a very interesting field, however, only until recently very little attention has been paid to the oxidation of ethane, the second most abundant paraffin (1). The production of ethylene or acetaldehyde from this feed stock is a challenging option. Vanadium oxide is an important element in the formulation of catalysts for selective cataljdic reactions (e. g. oxidation of o-xylene, 1-3, butadiene, methanol, CO, ammoxidation of hydrocarbons, selective catalytic reduction of NO and the partial oxidation of methane) (2-4). Many of the reactions involving vanadium oxide focus on the selective oxidation of hydrocarbons, and some studies have also examined the oxidation of ethane over vanadium oxide based catalysts (5-7) or reviewed the activity of vanadium oxide for the oxidation of lower alkanes (1). Our work focuses on determining the relevance of the specific oxide support and of the surface vanadia coverage on the nature and activity of the supported vanadia species for the oxidation of ethane. 

Partially reduced vanadium oxide catalysts have been examined in the selective oxidation of pentane and pentene to phthalic and maleic anhydride. The anhydride selectivity has been shown to be a strong function of catalyst pre-reduction and reaction temperatures. Controlled-atmosphere, postreduction and post-reaction surface characterization experiments have shown the most selective catalyst surface to.be comprised of VgO,j, V.,09, and VOg species. In this phase of the research, dicyclopentadiene has been used as a probe molecule to elucidate the reaction network for the formation of phthalic and maleic anhydrides. 

Theory has been used predominantly to probe the nature of the sites on vanadium clusters and model vanadium oxide surfaces. Cluster and p>eriodic DFT calculations [68,69] have been carried out in order to imderstand the electronic and structural properties of the exposed (100) surface of (VO)2P207. Both cluster and slab calculations reveal that surface vanadium sites can act as both local acid and base sites, thus enhancing the selective activation of n-butane as well as the adsorption of 1-butene. Vanadium accepts electron density from methylene carbon atoms and, thus aids in the subsequent activation of other C-H bonds. Calculations reveal that that the terminal P=0 bonds lie close to the Fermi level and thus present the most nucleophihc oxygen species present at the surface for both the stoichiometric as well as phosphate-terminated surfaces. These sites may be involved in the nucleophilic activation of subsequent CCH bonds necessary in the selective oxidative conversion of butane into maleic anhydride. Full relaxation of the surface, however, tends to lead to a contraction of the terminal P=0 bonds and a lengthening of the P V bonds. This pushes the P V states, initially centered on the oxygen atoms, higher in energy and thus increases their tendency to be involved in nucleophilic attack . 

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