An efficient vanadium phosphorus oxide catalyst prepared by tuning vanadium precursor for selective oxidation of n-butane to maleic anhydride

Abstract

Maleic anhydride (MA), as an industrially important chemical, is currently produced through selective oxidation of n-butane (SOB) over vanadium-phosphorus-oxygen (VPO) catalyst, but sufferring from low selectivity by overoxidation. Therefore, preparing selective VPO catalysts is urgent, but remains a challenge. Herein, we prepared an efficient VPO catalyst (VPO-Vsg) by using the pre-synthesized V2O5 (V2O5-sg) via a sol–gel process as V source. It shows about 90 % n-butane conversion with more than 70 % MA selectivity under 2000 h−1 and 400 °C conditions. It shows much superior MA yield (more than 60 %) to the VPO catalyst prepared by using commercially available V2O5 (V2O5-ca) as V source, ascribed to the optimal V oxidation state and lattice oxygen content, and the decreasing V5+ contributes its higher selectivity. This study not only generates an excellent VPO catalyst for MA production, but also provides a facile and effective approach for designing efficient catalysts for hydrocarbon selective oxidation.