Engineering Commons^™

Effect Of Catalyst Structure On Oxidative Dehydrogenation Of Ethane And Propane On Alumina-Supported Vanadia, Morris D. Argyle, Kaidong Chen, Alexis T. Bell, Enrique Iglesia

Faculty Publications

The catalytic properties of Al2O3-supported vanadia with a wide range of VOx surface density (1.4-34.2 V/nm2) and structure were examined for the oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane and propane. UV-visible and Raman spectra showed that vanadia is dispersed predominately as isolated monovanadate species below ~2.3 V/nm2. As surface densities increase, two-dimensional polyvanadates appear (2.3-7.0 V/nm2) along with increasing amounts of V2O5 crystallites at surface densities above 7.0 V/nm2. The rate constant for oxidative dehydrogenation (k1) and its ratio with alkane and alkene combustion (k2/k1 and k3/k1, respectively) were compared for both alkane reactants as a function of vanadia surface density. Propene …