Oxidative dehydrogenation of propane using lattice oxygen of vanadium oxides on silica

Oxidative dehydrogenation of propane using lattice oxygen of vanadium oxide was carried out with a fix-bed flow reactor at 450 degrees C under atmospheric pressure. Vanadium oxide loaded on SiO(2) from V(t-BuO)(3)O afforded a high propylene selectivity of 88.3% with a propane conversion of 26.5% based on the lattice oxygen of vanadium oxide. The catalyst prepared with V(t-BuO)(3)O exhibited higher propane conversion and propylene selectivity than that prepared with NH(4)VO(3). Raman, XPS, and XRD analyses revealed that isolated VO(4)(3-) species seem to be active sites in the ODHP. For the dehydrogenation of propane, the lattice oxygen of the isolated VO(4)(3-) species was used to give propylene and H(2)O. The isolated VO(4)(3-) species was reduced to the isolated V(3+) species and was regenerated by oxidation with oxygen. The activity was maintained for at least 10 repeated cycles, suggesting that VO(x)/SiO(2) would be a promising catalyst for ODHP.