Structures, activities, and mechanisms under the spectroscopes: the quest for unveiling the nature of active sites for highly selective CO2 hydrogenation to methanol

Since the industrial revolution in the 1760s, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has been rising incessantly driving global warming closer to the point of no return. The world requires urgent actions to not only reduce CO2 emissions but also capture the CO2 for utilization to mitigate the future environmental crisis. CO2 hydrogenation to...

Air-to-Methanol via the micro-plant approach: An ex-ante Life Cycle Assessment

The capture of carbon dioxide before or after it is emitted has been regarded as a crucial mitigation pathway to prevent the rapidly increasing accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. The valorisation of the captured CO2 into value added products such as methanol provides an additional economic incentive to continue developing these technologies....

Techno-economic and environmental comparative assessment of two renewable methanol production routes

Characterization of Transient behaviors and Operability study of a novel small scale Methanol Synthesis Reactor: Working on feed recycle by Natural Convection

The dwindling of natural resources, mainly fossil fuels, and the alarming increase in the global average temperatures, are the biggest concerns of the engineering and scientific community of 21st century. Studies have found that known reserves of oil and natural gas will last another 50 years. Coal will last another 110 years, which points...

Dynamic electrical behaviour of a solar powered methanol micro-plant

Liquid fuels are projected to account for 88% of total energy use in the transportation sector in 2040. Low cost of renewable energy poses a new opportunity for decarbonisation of the transport sector. As a liquid en- ergy carrier, methanol offers a promising solution for alternative fuels in aviation, shipping and long-distance trucking. Zero...

A system integration for solar powered methanol synthesis

With the rising renewable energy demand, sustainable energy storage systems become more important. Zero Emission Fuels (ZEF) is developing a solar powered methanol micro-plant that produces methanol, using water and carbon dioxide, out of the air. ZEF’s focus this far was on developing the subsystems for the micro-plant. This report is about the...

Development And Characterization Of A Small Scale Methanol Synthesis Reactor Based On Natural Convection

Increasing renewable electricity production calls for innovative methods to store electricity as well as a desire for electrification of processes that currently rely on fossil fuels. Zero Emission Fuels is a company that is developing a system to convert carbon dioxide and water from the air into methanol, a liquid hydrocarbon fuel, using...

Pathways to Industrial-Scale Fuel Out of Thin Air from CO₂ Electrolysis

Using renewable energy as an input, Power-to-X technologies have the potential to replace fossil fuels and chemicals with dense-energy carriers that are instead derived out of thin air. In this work, we put into context what the industrial-scale production of chemicals from ambient CO₂ using CO₂ electrolysis means in...

Dynamic model and preliminary design of a small-scale renewable methanol system

Zero Emission Fuels B.V. develops a standalone System that produces renewable methanol from air and sunlight. In this thesis the steady-state model of this System is replaced with a Simulation Tool that can predict its behaviour for every minute of a year. The goal is to verify how technical design parameters influence methanol production and to...

Experimental Characterization of a Novel Small-Scale Natural Circulation Loop Methanol Synthesis Reactor

The present-day industrialized nations reached high standards of living using cheap fossil fuel energy. The high CO<sub style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: &quot;Lucida Grande&quot;, &quot;Lucida Sans Unicode&quot;, sans-serif;">2</sub> emissions as a result of burning these fuels over the years have started outpacing the natural carbon...

Modeling of a natural circulation flow reactor for methanol synthesis from renewable sources: Description of an experimental prototype

In 2015, 30% of the world's energy demand was met through petroleum based sources, whose burning has affected the world's climate. The Paris Climate Agreement, among other policies, has shifted the focus towards usage of renewable energy sources. Currently, the renewable market caters predominantly to meeting the electric demand, which only...

Methanol Production from Syngas: Process modelling and design utilising biomass gasification and integrating hydrogen supply

Transitioning from a heavily fuel reliant economy to a sustainable future is one of the major challenges of our time. The high energy density and good storage properties of fossil fuels have made them the most important energy source for the last centuries. Moving away from fossil fuels towards greener, biomass-based energy and energy carriers...

System Study Towards the Integration of Indirect Biomass Gasification, Methanol and Power Production

The transition from a fossil based economy to a greener, bio-based economy remains challenged by the gap in technological maturity between bio-based processes and conventional fossil energy. Decreasing the price difference between fossil fuels and bio-fuels remains a major constraint. With 98% of the transportation sector now depending on fossil...