Supercritical solvothermal synthesis under reducing conditions to increase stability and durability of Mo/ZSM-5 catalysts in methane dehydroaromatization

Natural gas is currently envisioned as a potential energy and hydrocarbon feedstock in the forthcoming years. To overcome the detrimental flaring of this natural gas and the partial release of its major component, methane, novel and more effective strategies are required. These include the development of new, efficient and seemingly stable catalysts able to rapidly convert methane into valuable feedstocks. We show a novel synthesis method of Mo/ZSM-5 based on a solvothermal synthesis under supercritical conditions and reducing atmosphere (SC-STS-E) to improve metal dispersion and enhance catalyst stability and durability during the methane dehydroaromatization (MDA) reaction. In contrast to the conventional impregnation method, SC-STS-E provides a super-high atom-like metal dispersion at the zeolite pores resulting in the most stable Mo/ZSM-5 catalyst for MDA with the highest long-term hydrocarbon yield (x(CH4) = 11.6% and y(C2)(+) = 8.9%, after 15 h on stream) among the catalysts reported in literature for this reaction.