China opens world’s largest CO2 to methanol plant – New Scientist

The world’s first factory to convert carbon dioxide into methanol on a commercial scale has been opened in China. The plant will produce an estimated 500,000 tons of CO₂emissions per year compared to plants that make methanol from coal.

The world’s largest carbon dioxide (CO .) conversion plant is located in the Chinese city of Anyang₂) and hydrogen in methanol open.

Methanol is a liquid also known as wood alcohol or burning alcohol. It is used as a fuel and for the production of chemicals such as plastics. Usually, methanol is made from coal or natural gas. The new factory uses the CO . instead₂ that is released during other production processes.

ALSO READ
The ‘fifty plus belly’ is not due to a slower metabolism

This leads to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. ‘We estimate the avoided emissions at more than 500,000 tons of CO₂equivalent per year,” said Ómar Freyr Sigurbjörnsson, director of Carbon Recycling International (CRI), the Iceland-based company that developed the technology and designed the plant.

This figure is based on the estimate that the production of one tonne of methanol from coal is usually about 6 tons of CO₂-equivalent yields. The determination takes into account all emissions that the production process in the new factory entails.

Second factory

The installation, managed by the company Shunli, uses CO₂ which is collected during the production of lime. that CO₂ is combined with hydrogen released when coal is heated to coke for steel production. The factory can produce 160,000 tons of CO . annually₂ converting it into 110,000 tons of methanol.

Previous pilot plants for the production of methanol from CO₂ could only make about 5,000 tons of methanol per year. The Shunli installation is thus by far the largest to date. CRI calls it the first installation to operate on a commercial scale.

Meanwhile, CRI is already working on a second CO₂-to-methanol plant in China. That will reduce the CO₂ of a petrochemical complex in Lianyungang to make methanol for plastics production.

bunker fuel

To make it into a fuel, methanol is usually mixed with gasoline. In China, however, there are also vehicles that run entirely on methanol. In addition, there are more and more ships that run on methanol. These produce less pollutants than ships using the standard oil-based ‘bunker fuel’. However, they currently do not contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as almost all methanol is still made from fossil fuels.

According to Martin Bertau of the Institute for Chemical Technology in Freiberg, direct capture of CO₂ a lot of energy from the air. He therefore finds it logical that the factory should concentrate sources of residual CO₂ used. In Germany, the incineration of municipal waste produces huge amounts of CO₂ free that could also be used to make synthetic fuels, says Bertau.

hydrogen gas

Companies worldwide are also exploring other ways to produce methanol without using fossil fuels. For example, you can produce it from the biomethane that is released from manure.

So far, eighty projects have been announced to make methanol without using fossil fuels. If all of these continue, production capacity will exceed 8 million tons by 2027, says Rafik Ammar of the Methanol Institutethe worldwide trade organization for the methanol industry.

Also read: Hydrogen: panacea or sham?

Many see green hydrogen as a replacement for fossil fuels in applications that cannot run on electricity. But green methanol has huge benefits, says Bertau. Unlike hydrogen gas, methanol does not need to be compressed – which costs energy – and has a higher energy density. Methanol is also much easier and safer to store and move.