Two-Step Dry Gel Method Produces MgAPO-11 with Low Aspect Ratio and Improved Catalytic Performance in the Conversion of Methanol to Hydrocarbons

In this article, the synthesis, characterization and catalytic performance of three MgAPO-11 catalysts with distinct crystal morphologies (sunflower, ball candy) are presented. Among samples, candy-like MgAPO-11-C, high crystallinity uniform particle size (of about 1 µm), was synthesized for first time by using a unique two-step dry gel method. Despite similar acid strength different resulted in very methanol-to-hydrocarbons (MTH) performances. particular, MgAPO-11-C presented best MTH highest total conversion capacity (4.4 gMeOH·gcatalyst−1 h−1) selectivity to C5+ aliphatics (64%).