X-Ray study of a vanadium–phosphorus mixed oxide catalyst for selective butane oxidation to maleic anhydride
Abstract
The radial electron distribution obtained from X-ray patterns has been used to study the structure of a poorly-crystalline vanadium–phosphorus mixed oxide (VPO) catalyst after selective oxidation of n-butane; the effective catalyst consists of a mixture of a crystallized (VO)2P2O7 phase (V4+) and an amorphous VPO phase (V5+) showing many corner-sharing VO6 octahedra.