Al2O3-Supported W-V-O bronzes catalysts for oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane

Supported vanadium-containing hexagonal tungsten bronze were prepared for the first time, thanks to the combination of a new soft synthetic procedure and fine-tuned heat treatments. The characterization of het-treated samples indicates that both unsupported and Al2O3-supported materials present mainly vanadium containing crystals with hexagonal tungsten bronze (HTB) structure smaller in the supported materials. However, supported materials present smaller crystals compared to unsupported materials. Raman, Diffuse Reflectance UV-vis and EPR spectroscopies results suggest the presence of different V-species depending on the V-loading and catalyst composition. When used as catalysts for ethane oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH), selected supported vanadium-HTBs show selectivity to ethylene as high as 80% at ethane conversion around 18%. These values position these new materials as one of the most active and selective catalysts so far reported in the literature for ethane ODH over supported vanadium oxide catalysts.