Recent trends and fundamental insights in the methanol-to-hydrocarbons process

Abstract

The production of high-demand chemical commodities, such as ethylene and propylene (methanol-toolefins), hydrocarbons (methanol-to-hydrocarbons), gasoline (methanol-to-gasoline) and aromatics (methanol-to-aromatics) from methanol-obtainable from alternative feedstocks, such as carbon dioxide, biomass, waste or natural gas through the intermediate formation of synthesis gas-has been central to research in both academia and industry. Although discovered in the late 1970s, this catalytic technology has only been industrially implemented over the last decade, with a number of large commercial plants already operating in Asia. However, as it is the case for other technologies, industrial maturity is not a synonym of full understanding. For this reason, research is still intense and a number of important discoveries have been reported over the last few years. In this review, we summarize the most recent advances in mechanistic understanding-including direct CC bond formation during the induction period and the promotional effect of zeolite topology and acidity on the alkene cycle-and correlate these insights to practical aspects in terms of catalyst design and engineering.

High‐Quality Gasoline Directly from Syngas by Dual Metal Oxide–Zeolite (OX‐ZEO) Catalysis

“…Ah igher space velocity benefits the formation of C 5 -C 11 products.H owever,t he enhancement slows down beyond 1000 mL g À1 h À1 ( Figure S6). [10] In the syngas conversion reported here, these intersections as well as wider channels obviously favor aromatization and the aromatics content in gasoline is higher than that in zeolites with 1D channels (Tables 1a nd S4). Although larger molecules cracked by zeolites may be also isomerized in secondary reactions,t he iso/n-paraffin ratio remained below 5.…”

On the Accuracy of Density Functional Theory in Zeolite Catalysis

“…We will use two classes of reactions both employing the chabazite (CHA) zeolite. First, we will investigate Brønsted acid catalyzed reactions related to DME synthesis and the methanol‐to‐olefins (MTO) process in the acidic CHA, H‐SSZ‐13 . The same framework is also used extensively for the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of NO x emissions.…”

“…First, we will investigate Brønsted acid catalyzed reactions related to DME synthesis and the methanol-to-olefins (MTO) process in the acidic CHA, H-SSZ-13. [33,34,[36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49] The same framework is also used extensively for the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of NO x emissions. Here, copper-exchanged SSZ-13, Cu-SSZ-13, is employed.…”

Insight into the Role of Water on the Methylation of Hexamethylbenzene in H‐SAPO‐34 from First Principle Molecular Dynamics Simulations

“…[1][2][3][4] As methanol can be produced from any gasifiable carbon-rich source, the methanol-to-olefins (MTO) process is one of the main technologies to bypass the use of crude oil in the production of highly demanded ethene and propene. [5][6][7][8][9][10] In particular the chabazite structured H-SAPO-34 is of industrial interest due to its high selectivity to light olefins. [11][12][13] Decreasing the particle size, [14][15][16][17] creating mesopores [18] or adding water [13,[19][20][21][22][23] all improve the stability of the catalyst.…”

“…[13,19,20] Despite being commercialized, the MTO process still draws a lot of attention from both academia and industry due to its complex reaction mechanism. [8][9][10]28,29] Intensive research performed in the last decades to elucidate the complex MTO reaction mechanism led to the general acceptance of the hydrocarbon pool (HP) mechanism. In this mechanism, an organic compound that is trapped in the catalyst pores acts as a co-catalyst.…”