Opportunities for less-explored zeolitic materials in the syngas-to-olefins pathway over nanoarchitectured catalysts: a mini review

Abstract

The continuous demand for olefins has stimulated recent research to develop appropriate technology to produce olefins from alternative resources. Syngas-to-olefins (STO) is considered to be a promising pathway due to the availability of numerous technologies to produce syngas from municipal solid waste and biomass. The development of catalysts to obtain high CO conversion and high selectivity to olefins is still in progress. The first route is based on iron and cobalt catalysts via Fischer Tropsch synthesis to olefins (FTO) with a range of promising supports and promoters. The second approach is based on metal oxide–zeolite (OX–ZEO) composites, with a focus on combined metal oxides to increase the CO conversion. Finally, the potency of less-explored zeolite frameworks such as FER, KFI and Rho zeolites is highlighted. We propose that researchers should focus on FER, KFI and Rho zeolites. However, further reaction mechanism studies should be elaborated to obtain their optimum conditions for STO.