Mechanism of methanol-to-olefin (MTO) reaction

Abstract

The full name of MTO is methanol to olefin, which is a new chemical reaction process to gain an important chemistry industry raw material. In this paper, we mainly talk about several general reaction process as well as the mechanism of the reaction. The use of molecular sieve catalytic process is a key point where the new MTO process different form the original simple petroleum cracking in order to again olefin. In this work we mainly discuss how the MTO process could happen with the assist of the molecular sieve catalyst. There are direct mechanism Carbene mechanism and Methane-formaldehyde mechanism. The effect of the direct mechanism is to gain some simple and short Carbon-Carbon product. And then the indirect mechanism will take on to control the rate of the reacting process and the ration of different products. By studying on the mechanism of the MTO reaction, we can figure out how a powerful catalyst, molecular sieve catalyst, works in the reaction. Also, the MTO process is a meaningful way to take place of the origin cracking process to gain olefin, as the storage of petroleum is decreasing fast recently.