From nanoscale discrete diffusion behavior control to macroscale coal chemical process

Based on the manipulation of chemical reactions and chemical bonds, the chemical industry solves transport problems on a spatial and temporal scale that exceeds 12 orders of magnitude, creating and producing new substances for human society. The discovery and use of crude oil have brought the chemical industry into a new era and supported the operation of modern society. However, for China, the resource endowment determines that the development of the coal chemical industry has unique strategic significance. Unlike the hydrocarbon cracking process, the modern new coal chemical industry relies on the self-assembly of small molecular from raw materials and the shape-selective effect of zeolites to produce fuels and chemicals with high selectivity. Therefore, at the sub-nanometer scale, that is, the reaction and transfer behavior of small molecules on shape-selective zeolites can no longer be regarded as continuous, but discrete, which leads to a series of phenomena such as deactivation with pseudo-phase transitions on the macroscale. Based on the discrete transfer phenomena in zeolites at the nanoscale, this paper reviews the research and discovery of a series of new phenomena using graph theory, small-world networks, and advanced characterization methods to analyze the deactivation and transfer phenomena. The atomic-level precise structural modification of the zeolite and the innovation it brings to the macro coal chemical process is introduced. Towards the future, the paradigm for analyzing the discrete behavior in zeolites established in this article will provide a new way of thinking for precisely adjusting the zeolite structure and developing the next generation coal chemical process.