FIELD: industrial organic synthesis. SUBSTANCE: novel selective process for production of acetic acid from gaseous raw material containing ethane or ethane-ethylene mixture and oxygen at elevated temperature consists in that gaseous raw material is brought into contact with catalyst, the latter being prepared by mixing solutions of all catalytic elements followed by drying and, if necessary, calcination. Catalyst is characterized by following empirical for elements (combined with oxygen): MoaPdbXcYd, where X denotes one or several elements selected from group including Nb, Ti, V, and W; Y denotes one or several elements selected from group including Al, Bi, Cu, Ag, Au, K, Rb, Contains, Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba, Zr, Sb, and Sn; indexes a, b, c, and d denote gram-atom proportions of corresponding elements provided that a=1, b>0, c>0, and d= 0-2; catalyst contains at least elements V and Nb as X; Mo and elements X are not based on heteropolyacids; if one element Y is Zr, one element X is W and, if one element Y is Al, the other element Y is Sb. Utilization of this catalyst allows ethane or ethane-ethylene mixture to be oxidized with selectivity up to 86% with regard to acetic acid under mildest conditions. EFFECT: increased selectivity of process. 9 cl, 2 tbl, 16 ex
