Methanol to Hydrocarbons

The methanol-to-hydrocarbon (MTH) conversion, an extremely important reaction in C1 chemistry, provides an alternative route for the production of high-demand chemicals and fuel such as olefins, gasoline, and aromatics. Although numerous commercial plants have been constructed recently, there is still adequate room for the improvement in the reaction efficiency, especially the product selectivity and catalyst lifetime. Accordingly, fundamental understandings of the reaction mechanism have attracted extensive attentions to provide guidelines for catalyst design and performance improvement. In this chapter, the significant progresses made over the past decades including the formation of the first CC bond and the subsequent reaction pathway of MTH conversion are highlighted. Moreover, the representative zeolites utilized in the fundamental researches and the development of efficient zeolite catalysts to achieve high selectivity toward lower olefins and improved catalyst lifetime are emphasized. Finally, the existing challenges and perspectives for future research directions of MTH reaction are briefly outlined.