New Spectroscopic Insight into the Deactivation of a ZSM‐5 Methanol‐to‐Hydrocarbons Catalyst

The nature of the hydrocarbon pool at different stages of the methanol-to-hydrocarbons reaction over ZSM-5 is examined. A combination of reaction testing, analytical and spectroscopic techniques is employed to investigate changes in the nature and form of the hydrocarbon pool as a function of reaction conditions and reaction time. It is shown that inelastic neutron scattering spectroscopy (INS) complements other spectroscopic methods for observing molecular components in the hydrocarbon pool of working catalysts. INS is uniquely able to spectroscopically identify the form of coke species present in deactivated catalysts.