Carbon Dioxide Capture and Recycling to Methanol: Building a Carbon–Neutral Methanol Economy.pdf

Abstract

Increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration and associated global warming can be linked directly to rising anthropogenic CO2 emissions. These emissions, outpacing the natural carbon cycle, originate predominantly from the burning of finite fossil fuel resources. As a unified solution to the challenges of global warming and energy-needs issues, a sustainable and renewable “methanol economy” concept has been proposed. Methanol, the simplest alcohol, is already utilized on a large scale as a carbon feedstock for synthesizing a plethora of organic compounds. Furthermore, methanol is a convenient liquid fuel and an attractive energy carrier. Chemical recycling of CO2, a greenhouse gas, to produce methanol, a green fuel, is of paramount importance for a carbon-neutral methanol economy. Recent advances in this research area are discussed with a focus on low-temperature homogeneous catalysis. In addition, this review provides a detailed discussion of integrated CO2 capture, including direct air capture (DAC), and recycling into methanol—a research field that has gained significant attention over the past five years.