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Updated: Apr 1, 2026

Chemical Precipitation Method for the Synthesis of Nb2O5 Modified Bulk Nickel Catalysts with High Specific Surface Area
Published on: February 19, 2018
High reactivity of nanosized niobium oxide cluster cations in methane activation: A comparison with vanadium oxides
Xun-Lei Ding1, Dan Wang1, Xiao-Nan Wu2
1Department of Mathematics and Physics, North China Electric Power University, Beinong Road 2, Huilongguan, Beijing 102206, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
The reactions between methane and niobium oxide cluster cations were studied and compared to those employing vanadium oxides. Hydrogen atom abstraction (HAA) reactions were identified over stoichiometric (Nb2O5)N(+) clusters for N as large as 14 with a time-of-flight mass spectrometer. The reactivity of (Nb2O5)N(+) clusters decreases as the N increases, and it is higher than that of (V 2O5)N(+) for N ≥ 4. Theoretical studies were conducted on (Nb2O5)N(+) (N = 2-6) by density functional calculations. HAA reactions on these clusters are all favorable thermodynamically and kinetically. The difference of the reactivity with respect to the cluster size and metal type (Nb vs V) was attributed to thermodynamics, kinetics, the electron capture ability, and the distribution of the unpaired spin density. Nanosized Nb oxide clusters show higher HAA reactivity than V oxides, indicating that niobia may serve as promising catalysts for practical methane conversion.
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