Hydrocarbon activation and oxidation on transition metal mixed oxides: Ft-IR and flow reactor studies

The gas-phase partial and total oxidation of hydrocarbons (light alkanes, light alkenes, alkyl-aromatics) over transition metal oxide catalysts has been investigated using FT-IR spectroscopy of the adsorbed species in an IR cell, and in a flow reactor. It is proposed that both total and partial oxidation occur at the expense of nucleophilic lattice oxygen species. C-H activation gives rise to alkoxy groups that have an increasing carbocationic nature by increasing the possibility to delocalize the cationic charge. A good parallelism is found between our data and with those are found in solution with similar oxidizing species. © 1996 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved