How to make sustainable CO2 conversion to Methanol: Thermocatalytic versus electrocatalytic technology

Is electrochemical CO2 reduction the future technology for power-to-chemicals? An environmental comparison with H2-based pathways

“…Table 1). [13][14][15] While they generated a more accurate separation duty of each process, the dependency on input compositions and superposition of separation processes 25 could not be considered. To avoid complex process design but consider the dependency on input compositions, we use an ideal separation unit that estimates the separation duty based on the minimum thermodynamic energy for separation (eqn (6)).…”

“…For further investigations, the single-pass CO 2 conversion is set to the commonly estimated level of 50%. [13][14][15] 4.2. Power-to-methanol Fig.…”

“…2,10 To accelerate the development of eCO 2 R, it is desirable to evaluate the technological prospect of eCO 2 R as soon as possible to identify the most promising approaches and potential development gaps. For this purpose, previous studies [13][14][15] analyzed future eCO 2 R technologies using estimations for the operating parameters based on other alkaline electrolyzers. The varying estimated parameters and future developments are summarized in Table 1.…”

“…Guzmán et al 14 compared the GHG emissions of eCO 2 R to methanol with an H 2 -based pathway. The estimated faradaic efficiency to methanol ranges from 32.7% to 89.3%.…”

“…All three studies rely on xed estimations regarding eCO 2 R technology development and the future operating parameters. [13][14][15] Hence, the comparative assessments of eCO 2 R and H 2based pathways are only valid for the specic parameter estimations that differ between the studies (cf. Table 1).…”