Recently the research team of the State Key Engineering Laboratory for Manufacturing Olefins from Methanol headed by Academician Liu Zhongmin and Research Fellow Zhu Wenliang at the CAS Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics has made new progress in the production of aromatics via coupling of methanol with CO.

In the course of research work the technical personnel have found out that methanol and CO can be subjected to coupling reaction over the metal modification-free, pure H-ZSM-5 zeolite, leading to around 80-percent aromatics selectivity. Furthermore, the research team has put forward a brand-new aromatization mechanism, supposing that methanol and CO can enter into carbonylation reaction over the H-ZSM-5 zeolite to yield an intermediate carbonyl compound that can further react with olefins to form the cyclopentenone intermediate, which can yield aromatic compounds after dehydration. The13C nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry and the isotope tracer method have confirmed that the carbon atoms in the CO molecules can enter into the intermediate aromatics and cyclopentenone compounds. Since a part of carbon atoms in the carbon monoxide molecules do enter into the aromatic species, they can increase the yield of aromatics which can enhance the economics of commercial production, as compared with that achieved by direct production of aromatics from methanol.