Oxidative dehydrogenation of propane on TiO2 supported antimony oxide/vanadia catalysts

TiO2-supported catalysts are prepared by first depositing antimony oxide particles of a few nanometers on top of the TiO2 crystallites and in a second step VOx is deposited by impregnation applying different VOx precursors. After impregnation, the catalysts were calcined in air or nitrogen at 500 °C. The catalysts were evaluated in the oxidative dehydrogenation of propane to propene in a laboratory reactor at 500 °C under normal pressure. Propene yields of 11% were obtained only for catalysts containing 10 wt% V and calcined in N2. Whereas for the catalysts with 10% V the chemical nature of the various vanadium containing compounds used for the VOx deposition seems to be of minor relevance, the catalytic performance of the catalysts with 5% V depends on the V compound used as VOx precursor.