VOHPO 4 ‚0.5H 2 O is a good catalyst precursor of (VO) 2 P 2 O 7 , which is an active phase or active component for the industrialized oxidation of n-butane into maleic anhydride. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] In addition, the (100) plane of (VO) 2 P 2 O 7 , which is an active plane for the selective oxidation, 2,3,7,8,11,13 originates from the (001) plane of VO-HPO 4 ‚0.5H 2 O. 8,21,22 Therefore, the easy synthesis of VOHPO 4 ‚0.5H 2 O with a high growth of the (001) plane is interesting from the standpoint of catalyst preparation. VOHPO 4 ‚0.5H 2 O is also a catalyst precursor of (NH 4 ) 2 [(VO) 3 (P 2 O 7 ) 2 ] active for ammoxidation. [23][24][25] To date, four methods have been reported for the preparation of VOHPO 4 ‚0.5H 2 O: (1) the reduction of V 2 O 5 with alcohols followed by reaction with H 3 -PO 4 , [1][2][3][4]8,12,[14][15][16]21,22,[26][27][28] (2) the reaction of a mixture of V 2 O 5 and H 3 PO 4 with NH 2 OH‚HCl or oxalic acid followed by heat treatment at 403 K, 1,3,5,10,12,25,26,29 (3) the preparation of VOPO 4 ‚2H 2 O followed by reduction with alcohols, 3,8,12,13,21,22,30 and (4) hydrothermal synthesis with V 2 O 4 and H 3 PO 4 at 773 K. 31 Methods 1-3 consist of two steps and method 4 requires a high temperature of 773 K.Here, we report the one-pot synthesis of highly crystalline VOHPO 4 ‚0.5H 2 O at 473 K and its successive transformation to (VO) 2 P 2 O 7 by using V metal not only as a V source but also as a reducing agent for V 2 O 5 .The reagents used were commercially obtained and used without further purification. The synthesis of VOHPO 4 ‚0.5H 2 O was carried out in a Teflon vessel as follows: 2.31 g of H 3 PO 4 (85%) was added to an aqueous solution of cetyltrimethylammonium chloride (30 cm 3 , 0.66 mol‚dm -3 ), followed by the addition of V metal (0.204 g, 4.00 × 10 -3 mol) and V 2 O 5 (1.46 g, 8.00 × 10 -3 mol) or NaVO 3 (1.95 g, 1.60 × 10 -2 mol), or only VOSO 4 (4.35 g, 2.00 × 10 -2 mol) at room temperature. The resulting suspension was purged with Ar and then the Teflon vessel was moved to a stainless autoclave. The autoclave was kept at 473 K for 48 h. Finally, the solution was filtered and the resulting powder was washed with ca. 700 cm 3 of water followed by evacuation at room temperature for 5 h. The yield was ca. 50% on a V basis. The BET surface area was 4 m 2 ‚g -1 . Samples a-c of VOHPO 4 ‚0.5H 2 O were prepared according to methods 1-3, respectively, which were described in refs 5 and 12.The powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns were recorded on a powder X-ray diffractometer (Materials Analysis and Characterization, MXP 3 ) by using Cu KR radiation. The infrared spectra of KBr pellets were recorded on a Perkin Elmer Paragon 1000PC spectrometer. Thermogravimetric and differential themal analysis (TG/DTA) was carried out in a N 2 flow (10 cm 3 ‚min -1 ) with Seiko Instruments TG/DTA 220. Transmission electron micrograph (TEM) and scanning electron micrograph (SEM) analyses were carried out with JEOL JEM-4000 FXII and JEOL TSM-T...