Methanol synthesis from CO ₂ and H ₂ 978469

RITE and three national institutes of Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) have been jointly developing a CO₂ mitigation system in “Project of Chemical CO₂ Fixation and Utilization Using Catalytic Hydrogenation” since 1990. A conceptual total system of the project is composed of the separation/recovery via membrane separation of a large amounts of CO₂ emitted from stationary sources such as power plant, iron-making plants, chemical plans and so on, H₂ production by water electrolysis, methanol synthesis from CO₂ and H₂, and of the transportation of the methanol produced to the sites for energy consumption and/or chemical production.

An application of the system to a 1,000 MW coal fired power plant could recover 470 ton/h of CO₂ and produce 323 ton/h of methanol. If the methanol produced is used for a power plant in Japan, the energy efficiency and the CO₂ reduction rate of the system could be estimated to be around 30%, 36% respectively.

RITE and NIRE previously developed Cu/ZnO-based multicomponent catalysts containing two or three metal oxides for methanol synthesis from CO₂ and H₂ 1,2,3). In the present study, our group has examined the long term stability of the catalyst in methanol synthesis. Furthermore, we have investigated the methanol synthesis over the multicomponent catalysts by using a reactor with a recycling equipment for unreacted gases. The present investigations made clear that the catalyst developed are highly active (>600 g-MeOH/kg-cat h) and selective (> 99.9%) and that the purity of the refined methanol is 99.9% or more. The methanol produced has been used tentatively for a methanol fuel test car.