Methanol

Methanol used to be made from wood when making charcoal – hence its old name “wood alcohol”.

It can also be made from syngas (H₂, CO and CO₂ mixture) but this is usually made from methane or coal, though converting methane to methanol then DME would be much better in terms of global warming than letting the methane escape into the atmosphere. The production of methanol from syngas is a commercial scale process using a catalyst made from zinc and chromium oxides, and running at a temperature of 320-450^oC and at a high pressure 250-350 atmospheres.

However, what would be really good, would to have some way of making methanol directly from CO₂ and hydrogen. This can be done, but it requires a high pressure. Using a ratio of H₂ to CO₂ of 10:3, a pressure of 442 atmospheres and the presence of a catalyst, it is possible to convert about 90% of the CO₂ present to methanol. Using a higher proportion of hydrogen a 10:1 mixture with CO₂, and a slightly lower pressure of 331 atmospheres, converts 95% of the CO₂ to methanol. Further details in a paper published in 2017 – link in references below.

Many different catalysts have been tried – this does seem like a good potential solution for an initial reaction for storing captured CO₂.

Methanol is used in many places in the chemical industry as a solvent and for making paints, plastics, adhesives, cleaning materials. It can also be used in fuel cells, but DME is far better for use as a transport fuel, as it is  closer in energy profile to the fuels currently used in internal combustion engines.