Studies of the thermal behaviour of binary oxide mixtures containing vanadium(V) oxide (V2O5-TiO2, V2,O5- MoO3, V2,O5-ZrO2 and V2O5-ZnO) have shown that the evolution of gaseous oxygen at fairly low temperatures is characteristic of those systems which are eflective catalysts for the oxidation of hydrocarbons. No weight changes were observed with V2, O5-ZnO mixtures under these conditions and, in accordance with this, zinc(II) oxide does not enhance the catalytic activity of vanadium(V) oxide. In V2O5-containing systems, evolution of oxygen occurs during the reduction of V2O5 to V2O4. This process is accelerated in the presence of certain metal oxides and such acceleration may be caused by structural interactions at the interface of the oxides. Among the systems studied, the formation of compounds such as Mo6V9O40 is thought to be of little significance from the catalytic point of view.