Possible effects of site isolation in antimony oxide-modified vanadia/titania catalysts for selective oxidation of o-xylene

Abstract

Titania-supported vanadia catalysts were modified by addition of antimony oxide for application in o-xylene selective oxidation to phthalic anhydride. It was shown that active and selective catalysts can be prepared by ball-milling mixtures of powders of TiO2, V2O5and Sb2O3followed by calcination. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy proves the formation of highly dispersed overlayers of vanadium oxide and antimony oxide, in which V5+is partially reduced to lower oxidation states and Sb3+is partially oxidized to Sb5+. Antimony oxide segregated into the outermost surface layers. It is therefore inferred that the presence of the antimony oxide modifier spatially separates V–O species and leads to “site isolation” which may be responsible for the positive effect of the modifier for the catalyst's selectivity.