Naphthalene oxidation over vanadium-modified Pt catalysts supported on γ-Al2O3

Alumina-supported platinum catalysts modified by vanadium were synthesised and tested for the complete oxidation of naphthalene. The catalysts were characterised by BET, pulsed CO chemisorption, powder X-ray diffraction, laser Raman spectroscopy and temperature-programmed reduction. Whilst BET and CO chemisorption results showed that the addition of vanadium modified both the textural properties of the support and the distribution of Pt, XRD and TPR data suggested the presence of V2O5 on catalysts with higher V loadings. TPR data showed that the concentration of V2O5 and possibly some other vanadium species increased as the V loading increased. Only 0.5%V was found to promote the activity of the 0.5%Pt/gamma-Al2O3 catalyst. The activity enhancement has been related to the presence of a more easily reducible vanadium species coupled with the enhanced number of surface Pt sites. On the other hand, the reduced activity demonstrated by catalysts with higher vanadium content (1 - 12%) has been attributed to the presence of crystalline V2O5.