Synthesis of reaction‐adapted zeolites as methanol-to-olefins catalysts with mimics of reaction intermediates as organic structure‐directing agents

Catalysis with enzymes and zeolites have in common the presence of well-defined single active sites and pockets/cavities where the reaction transition states can be stabilized by longer-range interactions. We show here that for a complex reaction, such as the conversion of methanol-to-olefins (MTO), it is possible to synthesize reaction-adapted zeolites by using mimics of the key molecular species involved in the MTO mechanism. Effort has focused on the intermediates of the paring mechanism because the paring is less favoured energetically than the side-chain route. All the organic structure-directing agents based on intermediate mimics crystallize cage-based small-pore zeolitic materials, all of them capable of performing the MTO reaction. Among the zeolites obtained, RTH favours the whole reaction steps following the paring route and gives the highest propylene/ethylene ratio compared to traditional CHA-related zeolites (3.07 and 0.86, respectively). Methanol-to-olefins (MTO) conversion over zeolites is a promising route for the production of light olefins. Now, Corma and co-workers show that using mimics of reaction intermediates as structure-directing agents allows the synthesis of highly selective zeolite MTO-catalysts.