Catalytic behaviour of M1, M2, and M1/M2 physical mixtures of the Mo–V–Nb–Te–oxide system in propane and propene ammoxidation Original Research Article

Essentially pure orthorhombic M1 and pseudo-hexagonal M2 phases were prepared using the precursor method. Consistent with literature the M1 phase was shown to be effective for propane ammoxidation to acrylonitrile while the M2 phase was essentially inert for propane activation. Both phases convert propene efficiently to acrylonitrile. Both phases show a significant selectivity dependence on the ammonia and oxygen concentrations in the feed, revealing thereby additional insights into the reaction Physical mixtures of the two separately prepared phases exhibited symbiosis in the ammoxidation of propane when finally divided (∼5 μm), thoroughly mixed and brought into intimate contact with each other. Acrylonitrile yields significantly higher than those obtained with the M1 phase alone were demonstrated with a 50 wt.% M1/50 wt.% M2 physical mixture having a corresponding surface area ratio of about 4:1. The phase cooperation effect is particularly large at high propane conversions and non-existent when the particle size of the phases is too large (e.g. >250 μm) and the inter-particle contact is poor.