Determination of the chemical nature of active surface sites present on bulk mixed metal oxide catalysts

CH3OH temperature programmed surface reaction (TPSR) spectroscopy was employed to determine the chemical nature of active surface sites for bulk mixed metal oxide catalysts. The CH3OH-TPSR spectra peak temperature, Tp, for model supported metal oxides and bulk, pure metal oxides was found to be sensitive to the specific surface metal oxide as well as its oxidation state. The catalytic activity of the surface metal oxide sites was found to decrease upon reduction of these sites and the most active surface sites were the fully oxidized surface cations. The surface V5+ sites were found to be more active than the surface Mo6+ sites, which in turn were significantly more active than the surface Nb5+ and Te4+ sites. Furthermore, the reaction products formed also reflected the chemical nature of surface active sites. Surface redox sites are able to liberate oxygen and yield H2CO, while surface acidic sites are not able to liberate oxygen, contain either H+ or oxygen vacancies, and produce CH3OCH3. Surface V5+, Mo6+, and Te4+ sites behave as redox sites, and surface Nb5+ sites are Lewis acid sites. This experimental information was used to determine the chemical nature of the different surface cations in bulk Mo-V-Te-Nb-Ox mixed oxide catalysts (Mo(0.6)V(1.5)Ox, Mo(1.0)V(0.5)Te(0.16)Ox, Mo(1.0)V(0.3)Te(0.16)Nb(0.12)Ox). The bulk Mo(0.6)V(1.5)Ox and Mo(1.0)V(0.5)Te(0.16)Ox mixed oxide catalytic characteristics were dominated by the catalytic properties of the surface V5+ redox sites. The surface enrichment of these bulk mixed oxide by surface V5+ is related to its high mobility, V5+ possesses the lowest Tammann temperature among the different oxide cations, and the lower surface free energy associated with the surface termination of V=O bonds. The quaternary bulk Mo(1.0)V(0.3)Te(0.16)Nb(0.12)Ox mixed oxide possessed both surface redox and acidic sites. The surface redox sites reflect the characteristics of surface V5+ and the surface acidic sites reflect the properties normally associated with supported Mo6+. The major roles of Nb5+ and Te4+ appear to be that of ligand promoters for the more active surface V and Mo sites. These reactivity trends for CH3OH ODH parallel the reactivity trends of propane ODH because of their similar rate-determining step involving cleavage of a C-H bond. This novel CH3OH-TPSR spectroscopic method is a universal method that has also been successfully applied to other bulk mixed metal oxide systems to determine the chemical nature of the active surface sites.