The oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane was investigated on LaOF and BaF2-LaOF catalysts. It was found that BaF2-LaOF was more effective than LaOF for the catalytic conversion of ethane to ethylene. A selectivity of 74% for ethylene was obtained at 55% ethane conversion over 8 mol-%BaF2-LaOF compared with a selectivity of 58.5% for ethylene at 44.6% ethane conversion over LaOF under the same conditions : reaction temperature 660 degrees C, C2H6:O-2 = 67.7:32.3 and a feed gas flow-rate of 90 ml/min. It was also found that part of the ethylene in the products was produced by the thermal cracking of ethane. X-ray diffraction results showed that, when the molar percentage of BaF2 in BaF2-LaOF was less than 18%, only tetragonal LaOF was observed, and when the molar percent of BaF2 in BaF2-LaOF increased from 18% to 50%, tetragonal LaOF and lattice-contracted BaF2 were observed.