Performance Evaluation of V2O5/ZrO2 Catalyst for Selective Oxidation of O-xylene to Phthalic Anhydride

In this work the performance of titania and zirconia supported vanadium(v) oxide catalyst in the reaction of phthalic anhydride production by selective oxidation of o-xylene was investigated. For this purpose three catalyst samples with active phase of 4, 7 and 10 wt% on a Zro2 and one sample with active phase 7 wt% on a TiO2 were prepared byimpregnationmethod.To determine the characteristics of samples, a number of experiments such as BET, XRD, SEM were done. Moreover, catalyst testingin a fixed bed reactor was carried out in the low temperature range (310-410°C) and high (450-550°C) and space velocities (1000,2000h-1) in order to evaluate activity and selectivity to phthalic anhydride. Zirconia supported catalyst with active phase of 7 wt% showed high selectivity to phthalic anhydride. Comparison between two supports shows that sample V2O5/TiO2at a temperature range 310-410°C and V2O5/ZrO2 in 450-550°C had the most selectivity to phthalic anhydride. The 48 h stability test approved that the selectivity to PA for ZrO2 supported catalyst remained approximately stable.