Dehydrogenation of ethane to ethylene over silica-doped TiO2 supported Au catalysts was investigated. The silica doping of TiO2 support greatly improved the dehydrogenation activity of Au supported catalysts, which can be ascribed to the reduced Au particle size. An ethane conversion of 15.8% and ethylene selectivity of 94.8% can be obtained over the catalyst with SiO2 doping of 20 wt%. However, the activity would begin to decrease with further increasing of SiO2 content, since the proportion of Au delta+ species decreased monotonically with SiO2 amount, which may also play an important role in ethane dehydrogenation. [GRAPHICS] .