Niobium as a Catalytic Promoting Agent

Niobium-based materials are effective catalysts for many catalytic reactions; the literature reports a significant number of patents and papers describing significant improvement in catalytic performance upon promotion by niobium on the oxidative dehydrogenation of alkanes, on the selective oxidation of alkanes to carboxylic acids and on their ammoxidation to nitriles; they are also efficient for energy, environmental and sustainable-related processes, like the valorization of renewables (glycerol), hydrogen production, fuel cell electrocatalysts, photocatalysis, three-way catalysts and removal of NOx. This contribution reviews recent patents claiming promoting effect of niobium to different catalytic processes, and it also comments research papers providing an insight into the structure-activity relationships of such promoting effect. The uses of niobium as a main component in the formulation of catalysts will not be considered in the present contribution.