Effect of Mo Species on the Selective Oxidation of n‐Butane to Maleic Anhydride over Mo‐Promoted VPP

Abstract Vanadyl pyrophosphate contained catalysts (VPP) are of great importance for the selective oxidation of light alkane to chemicals. Achieving high conversion of alkane with a high selectivity of target products is critical for the practical applications of VPP. Here we selected three Mo species H 5 Mo 12 O 41 P (PMA), MoO 3 , and (NH 4 ) 6 Mo 7 O 4 ⋅4H 2 O (HAM) as promoters for VPP catalysts. Performance evaluation shows that all Mo‐promoted VPP catalysts have much better catalytic performance than those without Mo promoter, which are mainly attributed to the different Mo species could induce the formation of active crystal and affect the redox characteristic to varying degrees. Moreover, SEM revealed that the PMA possess a “shape memory” function, which result in crystallinity of (200) in PMA‐VPO is higher than others. H 2 ‐TPR suggested that PMA could increase the amount of oxygen and reduce the reduction activation energy, which is beneficial to enhance the activity of VPP. The presented results may be helpful for selecting superior metal promoter and facilitated the process of VPP catalyst development for n ‐butane selective oxidation.