(75a) Development of Highly Selective Oxidation Catalysts by Atomic Layer Deposition

The goal of the project is to develop new techniques for the manufacture of catalysts by atomic layer deposition (ALD) for the selective oxidative dehydrogenation of alkanes. The specific project objective is to demonstrate the catalyst manufacturing techniques by developing, characterizing, testing, and evaluating new catalysts for the direct ammoxidation of propane to acrylonitrile on existing catalytic substrates in conventional reactors and in single-pass catalytic reactors utilizing catalytic membranes. Our work has focused so far on the preparation of the ALD catalysts comprised of the oxides of vanadium, niobium and other transition metals. In our initial efforts, we have developed ALD chemistries for depositing these oxide materials onto flat substrates to facilitate analysis of the thin film layers. Next, we applied the ALD oxide materials onto high surface area silica gel powders as well as anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) membranes. We have characterized these catalysts using a variety of techniques including scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive analysis of X-rays, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and X-ray fluorescence. Catalytic testing of these ALD materials is beginning.