Alcohol Production from Carbon Dioxide: Methanol as a Fuel and Chemical Feedstock

Sarp, Seda; Hernandez, Santiago Gonzalez; Chen, Chi; Sheehan, Stafford W.

doi:10.1016/j.joule.2020.11.005

Cited by 110 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 108 publications

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“…The reactor is filled with a novel and proprietary heterogeneous catalyst that has not yet been reported in literature and is developed and synthesized on the kg-scale in Air Company's facilities, enabling stable and continuous conversion of CO 2 and H 2 into ethanol. The gaseous products are passed through a condenser assembly, which separates the room-temperature crude ethanol aqueous liquid and gases (Sarp et al, 2021). Room temperature gases are recycled into the reactor for further conversion.…”

Section: Air Company Examplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scaling CO2 Capture With Downstream Flow CO2 Conversion to Ethanol

Pace¹,

Sheehan²

2021

Front. Clim.

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To prevent the global average temperature from increasing more than 1.5°C and lower the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere, most emissions trajectories necessitate the implementation of strategies that include both GHG mitigation and negative emissions technologies (NETs). For NETs, there are unique research challenges faced by both CO2 capture and utilization to scale in an economically feasible manner. Starting with incumbent methods, wherein CO2 is recovered from a high concentration source, and moving toward CO2 capture from more widely available dilute sources, we outline how CO2 capture systems interface with downstream utilization in flow reactors. To provide a real-world point of comparison, we analyze CO2 sourcing for Air Company's CO2-to-alcohols pilot and demonstration scale deployments in Brooklyn, New York, USA and Calgary, Alberta, Canada as case studies. The degree of reduction in atmospheric CO2 depends on product alcohol usage; for example, use as a fixed chemical feedstock provides longer term emissions reduction than as a fuel, which is eventually oxidized. Lastly, we discuss the barriers that are present for economic scale-up of CO2 capture and utilization technologies broadly.

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Section: Air Company Examplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scaling CO2 Capture With Downstream Flow CO2 Conversion to Ethanol

Pace¹,

Sheehan²

2021

Front. Clim.

Self Cite

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“…The plant will utilize the CO2 emitted from the refinery Tomakomai City, Hokkaido, Japan with a 20 ton per day capacity, and will start operation in 2021. Sunfire Germany and Total Oil are constructing a green methanol plant with 160tpa capacity that will utilize a 1-MW electrolyzer powered by wind turbine for hydrogen production (Sarp et al, 2021). It is also found that the investment in methanol synthesis plant from carbon dioxide and hydrogen is similar to the one based on syngas.…”

Section: Methanol From Recycling Of Co2mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The best way for the future is by splitting of water by electrolysis or any other method. (Sarp et al, 2021)…”

Section: Methanol From Recycling Of Co2mentioning

confidence: 99%

Moving ahead from hydrogen to methanol economy: scope and challenges

Sonthalia

Kumar

Tomar

et al. 2021

Clean Techn Environ Policy

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Energy is the driver in the economic development of any country. It is expected that the developing countries like India will account for 25% hike in world-wide energy demand by 2040 due to the increase in the per capita income and rapid industrialization. Most of the developing countries do not have sufficient oil reserves and imports nearly all of their crude oil requirement. The perturbations in the crude oil price, sanctions on Iran and adverse environmental impacts from fossil fuel usage are some of the concern. Therefore, developing countries have started investing heavily in solar and wind power and are considering hydrogen as a future energy resource. Hydrogen is possibly the cleanest fuel and produces only water vapour upon combustion. However, to tap the potential of hydrogen as a fuel, an entirely new infrastructure will be needed for transporting, storing and dispensing it safely, which would be expensive. In the transportation sector, a liquid alternate to fossil fuels will be highly desirable as the existing infrastructure can be used with minor modifications. Amongst the possible liquid fuels, methanol is very promising. Methanol is a single carbon atom compound and can be produced from wide variety of sources such as natural gas, coal, and biomass. The properties of methanol are conducive for use in gasoline engines since it has high octane number and flame speed. Other possible uses of methanol are: as a cooking fuel in rural areas, and as a fuel for running the fuel cells. The present study reviews the limitations in the hydrogen economy and why moving towards methanol economy is more beneficial.

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“…Among these products, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) synthetized using electricity coming from solar cells ( Johnson et al., 2017 ; Licht et al., 2016 ; Ren and Licht, 2016 ) can represent an economic stepping stone because of their large potential profit margin (100 000-400 000 $ t −1 ). However, they are not yet a widely used industrial feedstock as a large portion of their current market is R&D. Alcohols such as methanol ( Marlin et al., 2018 ) and ethanol ( Pace and Sheehan, 2021 ), are currently being made from CO 2 on commercially relevant scales and being used in specialty chemicals and consumer goods, respectively ( Sarp et al., 2021 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%