Abstract
This review presents methanol as a potential renewable alternative to fossil fuels in the fight against climate change. It explores the renewable ways of obtaining methanol and its use in efficient energy systems for a net zero-emission carbon cycle, with a special focus on fuel cells. It investigates the different parts of the carbon cycle from a methanol and fuel cell perspective. In recent years, the potential for a methanol economy has been shown and there has been significant technological advancement of its renewable production and utilization. Even though its full adoption will require further development, it can be produced from renewable electricity and biomass or CO2 capture and can be used in several industrial sectors, which make it an excellent liquid electrofuel for the transition to a sustainable economy. By converting CO2 into liquid fuels, the harmful effects of CO2 emissions from existing industries that still rely on fossil fuels are reduced. The methanol can then be used both in the energy sector and the chemical industry, and become an all-around substitute for petroleum. The scope of this review is to put together the different aspects of methanol as an energy carrier of the future, with particular focus on its renewable production and its use in high-temperature polymer electrolyte fuel cells (HT-PEMFCs) via methanol steam reforming.
Highlights
The negative consequences of the continued use of fossil fuels on the planet are well documented and widely accepted, whereas the advantages of renewable energy sources are highly acclaimed [1,2,3,4,5,6].Other than the existential consequence of keeping global warming below catastrophic limits, renewable sources, unlike fossil fuels, are neither limited resources nor located in certain areas of the globe, leading to geopolitical dependencies and conflicts.The international energy agency (IEA) reported that in 2018 the global energy-related CO2 emissions rose to a record high 33.1 Gt CO2, of which more than 10 Gt were from coal use in power generation, mainly in Asia [7]
In the direct conversion of CO2 to methanol (CTM) process, the conventional syngas production in Figure 2 is replaced by the production and compression of CO2 and H2, which can be achieved by relevant technologies, i.e., water electrolysis, CO2 capture and biogas production, in the methanol plant or from other sites
A large-scale CTM pilot plant by Carbon Recycling International (CRI) named after Nobel Prize laureate George Olah has been operating in Iceland since 2012 with a production capacity of 4000 tons per year of methanol, where the CO2 from the off-gas of a geothermal power plant and H2 from water electrolysis are converted to fuel grade methanol [51]
Summary
The negative consequences of the continued use of fossil fuels on the planet are well documented and widely accepted, whereas the advantages of renewable energy sources are highly acclaimed [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Water electrolysis for hydrogen production from excess renewable electricity for later use at the time of higher demand is one of the most sought after options with very high capacity and fast response time for grid-balancing purposes [9,10] In this context, the produced hydrogen can be used as long-term storage and directly transported where it is needed, as a transportation fuel or for industrial applications. This paper focuses on methanol as a renewable energy carrier and a facilitator for the transition to a sustainable future It summarizes the processes involved in producing the necessary hydrogen using renewable electricity, while giving an overview of different sources for the CO2 used in methanol production. Particular attention is given to its use in high-temperature PEM fuel cells, known as reformed methanol fuel cells (RMFC) when fed with hydrogen-rich gas via methanol steam reforming
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