Oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH) of n-butane was investigated over ZrO2, SnO2 and SnO2-ZrO2 mixed oxide supported vanadium oxide catalysts with the aim of utilizing CO2 as the soft oxidant, and to study the effect of mixed oxide support on the ODH activity and C4 olefins selectivity. The acid-base properties, reducibility, surface area and morphology of the SnO2-ZrO2 mixed oxide and its individual component oxide supported vanadium oxide samples were thoroughly studied. The mixed oxide supported vanadia sample exhibited superior acid-base bifunctionality: in particular, more numbers of medium strength acid-base sites were observed. The reduction temperature of the vanadia was observed to decrease in the case of mixed oxide supported vanadia catalysts. The mixed oxide supported vanadia sample exhibited a high conversion and product selectivity than its individual component oxide supported vanadia samples. A significant difference in the catalyst activity was noted in the presence and absence (He) of CO2 feed gas. Among various catalysts evaluated. the VOx/SnO2-ZrO2 catalyst exhibited excellent performance (22.34 and 36.63% conversion of n-butane and selectivity of C4 olefins, respectively), which is attributed to a high specific surface area, superior acid-base bifunctionality and easily reducibility of the dispersed vanadium oxide. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.