Phase Relations in the System TiO2-V2Ox under Oxidizing and Reducing Conditions

The target of this work was to investigate the phase development in the catalyst system consisting of TiO₂ (Anatase) and V₂O₅ (Shcherbinaite) under several gas atmospheres. Thus a set of V₂O₅/TiO₂ specimens was prepared by ball milling and exposed to subsequent annealing in air and feed gas in the temperature range from 400 to 700 °C. The XRD-results showed that the initial phases Anatase and Shcherbinaite remain stable for all atmospheres containing oxygen. In the temperature range above 525 °C the formation of a Rutile solid solution (Rutile-ss) containing VO _x species takes place. However, under reducing conditions (lower oxygen partial pressure) the reduction of V₂O₅ to V₂O₃ was found by X-ray diffraction measurements. There is no miscibility up to 1300 °C followed by the formation of V₂TiO₅ (Berdesinskiite). SEM images underline the reduction by monitoring the change in morphology with respect to the V-containing phases. TiO₂ remains without much alteration. The two phases V₂Ti₇O₁₇ and V₂Ti₃O₉ (Schreyerite) as described in mineralogy have not been observed in these experiments. The knowledge of phase relations helps to find the appropriate processing conditions and to understand the aging phenomena of catalysts.