https://www.selleckchem.com/pr....oducts/bms-986165.ht
Methylation of toluene with methanol to produce p-xylene has been investigated for decades, but the origin of selectivity is still under debate. Here we report computational studies based on ab initio molecular dynamics simulations and free energy sampling methods to identify the key steps determining the selectivity. The steps of toluene methylation to protonated-xylene, deprotonation of protonated-xylenes, and diffusion of xylene in HZSM-5 channels are compared. We find the pathways of formation for protonated p-/m-xylenes have sim