Advances in Methanol Production and Utilization, with Particular Emphasis toward Hydrogen Generation via Membrane Reactor Technology

Abstract

Methanol is currently considered one of the most useful chemical products and is a promising building block for obtaining more complex chemical compounds, such as acetic acid, methyl tertiary butyl ether, dimethyl ether, methylamine, etc. Methanol is the simplest alcohol, appearing as a colorless liquid and with a distinctive smell, and can be produced by converting CO2 and H2, with the further benefit of significantly reducing CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. Indeed, methanol synthesis currently represents the second largest source of hydrogen consumption after ammonia production. Furthermore, a wide range of literature is focused on methanol utilization as a convenient energy carrier for hydrogen production via steam and autothermal reforming, partial oxidation, methanol decomposition, or methanol–water electrolysis reactions. Last but not least, methanol supply for direct methanol fuel cells is a well-established technology for power production. The aim of this work is to propose an overview on the commonly used feedstocks (natural gas, CO2, or char/biomass) and methanol production processes (from BASF—Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik, to ICI—Imperial Chemical Industries process), as well as on membrane reactor technology utilization for generating high grade hydrogen from the catalytic conversion of methanol, reviewing the most updated state of the art in this field.

Is the H2 economy realizable in the foreseeable future? Part III: H2 usage technologies, applications, and challenges and opportunities

“…The industrial process conditions are 50–100 bar and 250 °C. Renewable methanol as a liquid fuel has been proposed as another carbon-neutral energy vector in parallel to H 2 [ 17 ]. Other industrial-scale methanol production methods (synthesis, gasification, reforming), can be used to cover the rising demand of this fuel.…”

A Review of The Methanol Economy: The Fuel Cell Route

“…Consequently, the global methanol production has steadily increased in the past few decades from around 5 million metric tons in 1975 to around 110 million metric tons in 2018 [26]. Nowadays, methanol is already a key component of several everyday chemical products and its demand is estimated at around 100 million metric tons per year, increasing at an average annual growth rate of around 7% [27] to an estimated 91.53 billion $ global methanol market by 2026 [28].…”

Syngas and Methanol‐Based Biorefinery Concepts

“…The most common catalyst in use is a copper‐zinc oxide catalyst with aluminum oxide (Cu‐ZnO‐Al 2 O 3 ) or chromium(III) oxide (Cu‐ZnO‐Cr 2 O 3 ), which possesses high selectivity (> 99.5 %) and a prolonged industrial lifetime in the range of 3–6 years. By recycling unreacted syngas, methanol yields of up to 80 % are reached in standard industrial processes . However, when syngas derived from renewable resources such as biomass or steel gas is applied as the raw material for methanol production, discontinuous supply of the syngas, the presence of catalyst‐poisoning impurities, and changing gas compositions were reported to complicate process design .…”