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Methanol preferred technologies M-85/E-85

Discussions of conventional and alternative energy production technologies.

Re: Methanol preferred technologies M-85/E-85

Unread postby Graeme » Thu 20 Jun 2013, 21:50:27

Too green to be true? Researchers develop highly effective method for converting CO2 into methanol

Université Laval researchers have developed a highly effective method for converting CO2 into methanol, which can be used as a low-emissions fuel for vehicles. The team led by Professor Frédéric-Georges Fontaine presents the details of this discovery in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Researchers have been looking for a way to convert carbon dioxide into methanol in a single step using energy-efficient processes for years. "In the presence of oxygen, methanol combustion produces CO2 and water," explained Professor Fontaine. "Chemists are looking for catalysts that would yield the opposite reaction. That would allow us to slash greenhouse gas emissions by synthesizing a fuel that would reduce our dependence on fossil fuels."
The catalyst developed by Frédéric-Georges Fontaine and his team is made of two chemical groups. The first is borane, a compound of boron, carbon, and hydrogen. The second, phosphine, is made up of phosphorus, carbon, and hydrogen. "Unlike most catalysts developed thus far to convert CO2 into methanol, ours contains no metal, which reduces both the costs and toxic hazard of the catalyst," added the chemistry professor at the Faculty of Science and Engineering.

CO2 to methanol catalysis requires a source of hydrogen and chemical energy. The researchers had the idea of using a compound called hydroborane (BH3), and the results have been spectacular. The reaction achieved is two times more effective than the best catalyst known—and it produces little waste. What makes the discovery even more compelling is the fact that the chemical reaction does not damage the catalyst, which can be reactivated by adding new substrate.

The only downside of the operation is the price tag. "Our approach to creating methanol is highly effective from a chemistry standpoint, but for now the process is expensive," explained Professor Fontaine. "It takes a lot of energy to synthesize hydroborane, which makes it more expensive than methanol. We are working on ways to make the process more profitable by optimizing the reaction and exploring other hydrogen sources."


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Re: Methanol preferred technologies M-85/E-85

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 21 Jun 2013, 09:58:43

This technology like any tech for drawing CO2 out of the atmosphere and converting it to carbon fuel is an energy sink. So long as you are using more energy to make the fuel than you expect to get out and know it up front it is a great carbon neutral way to fuel things :)

Myself I would use all the intermittent power sources like wind/ solar/ tide sources to capture CO2 and make it into carbon fuels, then you can store those carbon fuels and use them when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing to run cars or trucks or trains that use liquid fuels, or gas turbine power plants that today mostly use Natural Gas.
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Re: Methanol preferred technologies M-85/E-85

Unread postby Graeme » Fri 11 Oct 2013, 18:46:50

Can Methanol Save Us All?

In the Wall Street Journal today, George Olah and Chris Cox suggest that instead of venting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, where it causes global warming, we should use it to create methanol:

Thanks to recent developments in chemistry, a new way to convert carbon dioxide into methanol—a simple alcohol now used primarily by industry but increasingly attracting attention as transportation fuel—can now make it profitable for America and the world to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions.

At laboratories such as the University of Southern California's Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute (founded by George Olah, one of the authors here), researchers have discovered how to produce methanol at significantly lower cost than gasoline directly from carbon dioxide. So instead of capturing and "sequestering" carbon dioxide—the Obama administration's current plan is to bury it—this environmental pariah can be recycled into fuel for autos, trucks and ships.

....In Iceland, the George Olah Renewable Methanol Plant, opened last year by Carbon Recycling International, is converting carbon dioxide from geothermal sources into methanol, using cheap geothermal electrical energy. The plant has demonstrated that recycling carbon dioxide is not only possible but commercially feasible.


Olah has been writing about a "methanol economy" for a long time, and he skips over a few issues in this op-ed. One in particular is cost: it takes electricity to catalyze CO2 and hydrogen into methanol, and it's not clear how cheap it is to manufacture methanol in places that don't have abundant, cheap geothermal energy—in other words, most places that aren't Iceland. There are also some practical issues related to energy density and corrosiveness in existing engines and pipelines. Still, it's long been an intriguing idea, since in theory it would allow you to use renewable energy like wind or solar to power a facility that creates a liquid fuel that can be used for transportation. You still produce CO2 when you eventually burn that methanol in your car, of course, but the lifecycle production of CO2 would probably be less than it is with conventional fuels.


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Re: Methanol preferred technologies M-85/E-85

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 11 Oct 2013, 19:50:31

If you are going to call it sequestering you would have to pump the resulting Methanol into geological traps, like say old oil fields, for very long term storage.
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Re: Methanol preferred technologies M-85/E-85

Unread postby Subjectivist » Wed 01 Jan 2014, 10:01:22

With China building so many new cars every year and new chemical plants to convert coal into methanol how much will their fuel needs for crude go up? Isn't the point of using M-85 to be able to use domestic coal instead of imported oil?
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Re: Methanol preferred technologies M-85/E-85

Unread postby Graeme » Sun 02 Mar 2014, 17:11:19

Newly discovered catalyst could lead to the low-cost production of clean methanol from carbon dioxide

An international research team has discovered a potentially clean, low-cost way to convert carbon dioxide into methanol, a key ingredient in the production of plastics, adhesives and solvents, and a promising fuel for transportation.

Scientists from Stanford University, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the Technical University of Denmark combined theory and experimentation to identify a new nickel-gallium catalyst that converts hydrogen and carbon dioxide into methanol with fewer side-products than the conventional catalyst. The results are published in the March 2 online edition of the journal Nature Chemistry.

"Methanol is processed in huge factories at very high pressures using hydrogen, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide from natural gas," said study lead author Felix Studt, a staff scientist at SLAC. "We are looking for materials than can make methanol from clean sources under low-pressure conditions, while generating low amounts of carbon monoxide."

The ultimate goal is to develop a large-scale manufacturing process that is nonpolluting and carbon neutral using clean hydrogen, the authors said.
"Imagine if you could synthesize methanol using hydrogen from renewable sources, such as water split by sunlight, and carbon dioxide captured from power plants and other industrial smokestacks," said co-author Jens Nørskov, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford. "Eventually we would also like to make higher alcohols, such as ethanol and propanol, which, unlike methanol, can be directly added to gasoline today."

Industrial methanol

Worldwide, about 65 million metric tons of methanol are produced each year for use in the manufacture of paints, polymers, glues and other products. In a typical methanol plant, natural gas and water are converted to synthesis gas ("syngas"), which consists of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and hydrogen. The syngas is then converted into methanol in a high-pressure process using a catalyst made of copper, zinc and aluminum.

"We spent a lot of time studying methanol synthesis and the industrial process," Studt said. "It took us about three years to figure out how the process works and to identify the active sites on the copper-zinc-aluminum catalyst that synthesize methanol."

Once he and his colleagues understood methanol synthesis at the molecular level, they began the hunt for a new catalyst capable of synthesizing methanol at low pressures using only hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Instead of testing a variety of compounds in the lab, Studt searched for promising catalysts in a massive computerized database that he and co-author Frank Abild-Pedersen developed at SLAC.


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Re: Methanol preferred technologies M-85/E-85

Unread postby Graeme » Sun 25 May 2014, 19:05:54

Study for European Parliament assesses options for turning CO2 into methanol for use in transport

A report prepared by ISIS (Institute of Studies for the Integration of Systems - Italy) together with Tecnalia (Spain) for the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) discusses the technological, environmental and economic barriers for producing methanol from carbon dioxide, as well as the possible uses of methanol in car transport in Europe.

The study evaluated costs and benefits from a life cycle perspective in order to compare various raw materials for producing methanol and in order to reflect the potential benefits of methanol obtained from CO2. The report concluded that benefits in the medium- and long-term can be anticipated since the obtaining of an alternative fuel using a residual greenhouse gas would allow European dependence on conventional fossil fuels to be cut, and that way the risks in supply security to be minimized.

Noting that it is “evident that considerable and sustained research efforts are necessary to turn CO2 into an efficient and competitive prime materials, which would be attractive not only for the transport sector, but also other industries,” the study proposes a series of policy options to promote the use of CO2 captured from flue gases for the production of methanol and its subsequent use in transport


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Re: Methanol preferred technologies M-85/E-85

Unread postby Subjectivist » Sun 25 May 2014, 23:42:50

I know you can reverse the combustion process, there are however two tricks. First you have to expend energy to collect the CO2 and H2O feed stock, second you have to build, maintain and supply energy to the machinery that does the reforming of the 2(CO2+H2O)=2(H3COH)+3(O2)
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Re: Methanol preferred technologies M-85/E-85

Unread postby Tanada » Mon 25 Dec 2017, 14:36:06

India is in the planning stage of following the pathway from low quality coal to methanol conversion plants, the same technology China is using to produce a large portion of Methanol vehicle fuel every year.

India has the potential to undertake the production of Methanol from high ash coal using indigenous technology with the help of industry, said a task forces on Methanol in New Delhi.

Addressing a press conference on Thursday, Chairman of the Methanol Task Force group and Member, NITI Aayog, Dr. V.K. Saraswat said Methanol has emerged as a clean, cheaper, safer and pollution free energy option which can be used for transportation fuels and cooking fuel. "India has the potential to undertake the production of Methanol from high ash coal using indigenous technology with the help of industry," he added.

A Combined meeting of the four task forces on Methanol was held under the chairmanship of Member, NITI Aayog, Dr.V.K.Saraswat in the capital on Thursday.

The task forces comprised of experts, scientists and academicians took stock of the progress in the efforts to explore and give a push to Methanol economy in the country.

Besides existing facilities can be ramped up to convert the high ash coal, stranded gas, and Biomass into Methanol. He added that by upscaling the production of Methanol, India can reduce its crude oil import bill substantially. Dr. Saraswat emphasized that Methanol would supplement various energy solutions being explored by the Government to reduce its dependence on crude oil imports.

Methanol is a clear and colorless liquid produced from natural gas, coal and renewable biomass including the solid waste.

Experts in the Methanol Task Force are of the opinion that in collaboration with various agencies, academia and industry the objectives of Methanol production and upscaling are feasible based on availability of the resources and technology.

The four task forces were set up six months ago and since then a series of meetings and deliberations have taken place to explore and give a push to methanol economy in the country.


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Re: Methanol preferred technologies M-85/E-85

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Thu 28 Dec 2017, 12:22:51

Tanada wrote:India is in the planning stage of following the pathway from low quality coal to methanol conversion plants, the same technology China is using to produce a large portion of Methanol vehicle fuel every year.


Pardon my ignorance, but how clean is this re GHG's?

I didn't see one word about pollution or GHG in the linked article (except for the FALSE claim of methanol being "clean" and "pollution free").

When I look up coal to methanol, I get lots of hits on gasification.

It seems that this is a mixed bag, per the following BBC article. Less local pollution than burning coal, but MORE GHG's.

Unless much of those GHG's can be sequestered (and if the goal is to be cheap, and methanol is being produced to burn, I doubt much of that is going on).

So less coughing and smog and cancer, but more AGW?

If that's the case, with India set to grow its economy very rapidly over the next decade, I'd like to see how the Paris Climate Accord fans/spinners manage that one.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26921145
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Re: Methanol preferred technologies M-85/E-85

Unread postby Subjectivist » Thu 28 Dec 2017, 15:16:17

To make Methanol from Coal step one is to produce Syngas by reacting the coal with steam and oxygen at very high temperature to make CO and H2. I learned about it because my kid brother works at a "clean coal" power plant and that is the first step. From there the synthesis gas or Syngas is run over a catalyst that binds two H2 molecules to the CO molecule which forms CH3OH aka Methanol. The process is only partially efficient so you have to separate out the methanol vapor and then sent the remaining gasses back over the catalyst over and over to get it all reacted. In clean coal plants they separate the H2 and CO and burn them in gas turbines with the resulting pure CO2 going to sequestration and the water vapor being vented as low temperature steam.
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Re: Methanol preferred technologies M-85/E-85

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Thu 28 Dec 2017, 16:39:13

Why do we need to produce Methanol from FF's at all? The MidWest produces incredible amounts of corn sweetener, and E-85 fuel is cheap and readily available throughout the area. I have used it several times in rental vehicles, and AFAIK it is distinguishable from the regular E10/E15 only by a slightly higher number of fuel stops.

This corn is largely produced today with propane and diesel fuelled farm machinery, and using direct ammonia injection to boost nitrogen content in soils, as well as petrochemical insecticides and herbicides. But I do not doubt that if we tried hard enough, we could fuel that machinery with E85, while using organic alternatives to the other petrochemicals. I do not know what the net positive energy would be, but I believe the process would work while yielding vehicle fuel. E-85 stretches petroleum gasoline by a factor of 7.

About the morality of diverting so much food into fuel production, while the rest of the world starves, I am not so sure.
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Re: Methanol preferred technologies M-85/E-85

Unread postby GHung » Thu 28 Dec 2017, 18:54:15

KaiserJeep wrote:Why do we need to produce Methanol from FF's at all? The MidWest produces incredible amounts of corn sweetener, and E-85 fuel is cheap and readily available throughout the area. I have used it several times in rental vehicles, and AFAIK it is distinguishable from the regular E10/E15 only by a slightly higher number of fuel stops.

This corn is largely produced today with propane and diesel fuelled farm machinery, and using direct ammonia injection to boost nitrogen content in soils, as well as petrochemical insecticides and herbicides. But I do not doubt that if we tried hard enough, we could fuel that machinery with E85, while using organic alternatives to the other petrochemicals. I do not know what the net positive energy would be, but I believe the process would work while yielding vehicle fuel. E-85 stretches petroleum gasoline by a factor of 7.

About the morality of diverting so much food into fuel production, while the rest of the world starves, I am not so sure.


Unless I'm mistaken, ethanol production is primarily from sugars whereas methanol production is largely from coal, cellulose, and plant fibers (wood chips, grasses, etc.). India is likely interested in methanol because it doesn't impact food production as much. Too many mouths to feed.
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Re: Methanol preferred technologies M-85/E-85

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Thu 28 Dec 2017, 20:24:39

You are correct. Ethanol is grain spirits, and can also be used in mixed drinks. The government subsidizes it to the tune of $24B per year. But the MidWest produces so much corn that much of the corn sugar ends up in packaged foods produced by those same corporations that own the farms and collect the subsidies. Because sweetness increases food sales.
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Re: Methanol preferred technologies M-85/E-85

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 29 Dec 2017, 02:57:56

KaiserJeep wrote:You are correct. Ethanol is grain spirits, and can also be used in mixed drinks. The government subsidizes it to the tune of $24B per year. But the MidWest produces so much corn that much of the corn sugar ends up in packaged foods produced by those same corporations that own the farms and collect the subsidies. Because sweetness increases food sales.


On a per acre basis corn starch is a terrible supply to use for feeding yeast to make ethanol. Sweet potato, white potato, heck even some perennial crops like strawberries are much better sources of digestible sugars and starch that feed the yeast. Sadly the political influence of the Corn Growers Association got the subsidies all lined up behind the Iowa corn farmers to the extent that alternative more effective crops are passively or even actively discouraged as alternatives.

The best way the Government could encourage ethanol crops would be to say "we don't care what source you use so long as it is biological and we will pay $0.XY per gallon for every gallon of 90 proof ethanol delivered to the finishing plant for drying and blending."

That system would encourage farmers everywhere to look at their potential crops and determine on a farm by farm basis if growing ethanol crops was worth the trouble or not. Potato farmers would jump all over this because roughly half of the crop is judged too large or too small for commercial use and is chopped up and dumped back in the fields as green fertilizer for the next season right after harvest.

As for why methanol, you don't have to use coal to make it the same Syngas process described above works with scrap wood, yard waste, food waste, switch-grass, corn stover, or a whole long list of other cellulose rich crops. In fact the Iowa corn farmers could actually produce many times the volume of Methanol as they can Ethanol simply by using the corn stalks, husks and cobs as feedstock for a methanol plant instead of using the corn starch for an ethanol plant.
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