Defect-rich TiO2 in situ evolved from MXene for efficiently oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane

Abstract It remains a challenge to make metal oxides with limited reducibility as active component rather than support or modifier for the oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) of light alkanes. Here, we report a special TiO2 (M-TiO2) evolved from Ti3C2Tx MXene material to be a new kind of efficient catalyst in the ODH of ethane. The reactivity on this M-TiO2 is four times higher than that on P25 TiO2, endowing an excellent ethylene productivity of 15.4 gC2H4 gcat-1 h-1 that outperforms the previously reported catalysts. Experimental characterizations and theoretical calculations reveal the existence of both Ti and oxygen vacancy defects on M-TiO2. The Ti defect can increase the reducibility of M-TiO2 to reduce the activation barrier of ethane while the oxygen vacancy facilitates the adsorption of O2 to recover lattice oxygen, accounting for the high performance. This work enlightens the defect engineering of traditional metal oxide as a promising catalyst in the oxidation catalysis.