Nature Communications (Sep 2024)

Dual-engine-driven realizing high-yield synthesis of Para-Xylene directly from CO2-containing syngas

  • Xuemei Wu,
  • Chengwei Wang,
  • Shengying Zhao,
  • Yang Wang,
  • Tao Zhang,
  • Jie Yao,
  • Weizhe Gao,
  • Baizhang Zhang,
  • Taiki Arakawa,
  • Yingluo He,
  • Fei Chen,
  • Minghui Tan,
  • Guohui Yang,
  • Noritatsu Tsubaki

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-52482-4
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 1
pp. 1 – 15

Abstract

Read online

Abstract The direct synthesis of light aromatics, especially para-xylene (p-X), from syngas/CO2 is drawing strong interest, but improving the space-time yield (STY) of p-X is a significant challenge. Here, a dynamic “dual-engine-driven” (DED) catalytic system is designed by combining two partners of ZnCr and FeMn (named “dual-engine”) with Z5@SiO2 capsule zeolite. The DED catalyst of 1.0%FeMn&[ZnCr&Z5@SiO2] shows an extremely higher p-X STY of 36.1 g p-x·kgcat -1·h-1, about eight times higher than that of [ZnCr&Z5]. DED manipulates ZnCr engine for methanol formation and drives FeMn engine for light olefins generation together, and then the formed methanol and light olefins are coordinately converted in situ into p-X-rich aromatics over Z5@SiO2. The DED model boosts the driving force for syngas/CO2 conversion, simultaneously concerting the cooperation of “dual-engine” for p-X generation, resulting in extremely high STY of p-X. This study achieves non-petroleum p-X production at industrial-relevant level and advances knowledge in designing innovative heterogeneous catalysts.