Ordered mesoporous alumina-supported vanadium oxides as an efficient catalyst for ethylbenzene dehydrogenation to styrene with CO2

Ordered mesoporous alumina (OMA)-supported vanadia catalysts with different vanadium loading (denoted as nV/OMA) were employed for ethylbenzene dehydrogenation to styrene with CO2 as soft oxidant, and a commercial gamma-Al2O3-supported vanadia catalyst for comparison. The catalytic behavior depends strongly on the vanadium loading and the support properties. With an optimal V loading of 0.8 mmol/g-support, 0.8 V/OMA catalyst exhibits superior catalytic performance than that of 0.8 V/gamma-Al2O3, which can be attributed to the excellent structural, textual, and surface properties of OMA support. The important roles played by OMA lies in stabilizing highly dispersed V5+ active species and preventing the coke formation.