Synthesis of Mo-incorporated zeolitic octahedral metal oxides based on vanadotungstate for the selective oxidation of methane to methanol.

Zeolitic octahedral metal oxides have both redox properties and microporosity, which make them good catalysts for selective oxidation. Tuning the chemical composition changes the catalytic activity of the catalyst. In this study, Mo was successfully incorporated into a zeolitic vanadotungstate with trigonal symmetry (ZOMO-3-VW-tri) to form an Mo-incorporated zeolitic vanadotungstate (ZOMO-3-MoVW-tri). Structural characterization showed that Mo was intrinsically incorporated into the structure of the catalyst, substituting for W within the cubane clusters. ZOMO-3-MoVW-tri exhibited exceptional catalytic performance for the selective oxidation of methane to methanol in an aqueous solution at 90 °C using only molecular oxygen as the oxidant, achieving selective oxidation with high efficiency.