Kinetic study of the gas phase oxidation of cyclohexane on the VPO Heterogeneous catalyst

The development of effective catalysts for the selective oxidations of alkanes is one of the challenges in the research on heterogeneous catalysts [1]. For the following two reasons (I) the absence of specific centers on the alkane for its absorption and selective activation and (II) the considerably higher reactivity of the possible intermediates or products makes it very difficult to find selective catalysts, especially using conversions of real interest for process development [2]. Among various alkanes oxidation, the selective oxidation of cyclohexane is much attractive because its products are the intermediates for the manufacture of Nylon-6 and Nylon-6-6 [3,4].