Synthesis of reaction‐adapted zeolites as methanol-to-olefins catalysts with mimics of reaction intermediates as organic structure‐directing agents

Catalysis with enzymes and zeolites have in common the presence of well-defined single active sites and pockets/cavities where the reaction transition states can be stabilized by longer-range interactions. We show here that for a complex reaction, such as the conversion of methanol-to-olefins (MTO), it is possible to synthesize reaction-adapted zeolites by using mimics of the key molecular species involved in the MTO mechanism. Effort has...