Converting to a methanol economy ?

[morganism]

There are quite a few new catalysts to directly convert CO2 to methanol, but this new one is efficient enough to use waste heat from an engine or industrial process to perhaps re-capture in-situ.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/nanostructured-metal-oxide-catalyst-efficiently-converts-co2-to-methanol#

There is also a neat thermalelectric converter that uses the edge of benzene or zigzag graphene to convert heat directly to electricity. Studies were done at UofAz.

http://uanews.org/story/turning-waste-heat-power

http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/news/penn-study-understanding-graphene-s-electrical-properties-atomic-level

[morganism]

Found: The 'holy grail of catalysis'—turning methane into methanol under ambient conditions using light.

"An international team of researchers, led by scientists at the University of Manchester, has developed a fast and economical method of converting methane, or natural gas, into liquid methanol at ambient temperature and pressure. The method takes place under continuous flow over a photo-catalytic material using visible light to drive the conversion."
(snip)

"The method involves a continuous flow of methane/oxygen-saturated water over a novel metal-organic framework (MOF) catalyst. The MOF is porous and contains different components that each have a role in absorbing light, transferring electrons and activating and bringing together methane and oxygen. The liquid methanol is easily extracted from the water. Such a process has commonly been considered "a holy grail of catalysis" and is an area of focus for research supported by the U.S. Department of Energy. Details of the team's findings, titled "Direct photo-oxidation of methane to methanol over a mono-iron hydroxyl site," are published in Nature Materials."

"To greatly simplify the process, when methane gas is exposed to the functional MOF material containing mono-iron-hydroxyl sites, the activated oxygen molecules and energy from the light promote the activation of the C-H bond in methane to form methanol," said Sihai Yang, a professor of chemistry at Manchester and corresponding author. "The process is 100% selective—meaning there is no undesirable by-product—comparable with methane monooxygenase, which is the enzyme in nature for this process."

The experiments demonstrated that the solid catalyst can be isolated, washed, dried and reused for at least 10 cycles, or approximately 200 hours of reaction time, without any loss of performance."

https://phys.org/news/2022-06-holy-grail-catalysisturning-methane-methanol.html

Direct photo-oxidation of methane to methanol over a mono-iron hydroxyl site, Nature Materials (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41563-022-01279-1. www.nature.com/articles/s41563-022-01279-1

[sidd]

Cool! Now go a lil further and add an extra carbon and a couple hydrogen, and that's a product with potential ...burn it, trade it, drink it as necessary ...

sidd

[morganism]

(xpost for search purposes)

Chinese scientists have developed a low-cost method of converting coal into protein for use in animal feed. Photo: Shutterstock
ChinaScience
Chinese scientists convert coal into protein to answer animal feed demand

    After studying thousands of samples, a Chinese team has developed a method of creating protein using methanol derived from coal

    This will help provide a low-cost solution to the growing need for animal feed, which is surging due to the rising global population

(...)
His team has now developed a protein production technology that is cheaper than traditional protein biosynthesis. The findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal Biotechnology for Biofuels and Bioproducts on November 17 last year.

The yeast strain Pichia pastoris (P. pastoris), used in this process, grows by using methanol. But because methanol is toxic and has complex pathways, about 20 per cent of it is wasted. It turns into carbon dioxide and water instead of being used for protein synthesis, which reduces the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the process.

“Research on synthesising cellular protein from methanol began in the 1980s, focusing mainly on strain selection and production process optimisation. Yet, due to high costs, methanol-synthesised protein products could not compete with soy protein and have not been produced on a large scale,” Wu said in the paper.
Food science breakthroughs can’t come fast enough for a warming world

To solve the problem, his team collected more than 20,000 yeast samples from vineyards, forests and marshlands across China. From those samples, they identified strains capable of efficiently using various sugars and alcohols as carbon sources.
And by knocking out specific genes in a wild-type Pichia pastoris strain, they engineered a yeast with significantly improved methanol tolerance and metabolic efficiency. This engineering dramatically boosted the targeted conversion of methanol to protein.

“The researchers achieved a dry cell weight and crude protein content of 120g/litre and 67.2 per cent with their modified P. pastoris. And the methanol-to-protein conversion efficiency reached 92 per cent of the theoretical value,” a report on the CAS website said.

The high conversion rate makes this protein production method very attractive economically.
“It doesn’t require arable land, is unaffected by seasons and climate, and is a thousand times more efficient than traditional agricultural practices,” Wu said in the paper.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3247350/chinese-scientists-convert-coal-protein-answer-animal-feed-demand-major-breakthrough


(cant find the paper here, maybe look for the Georgia angle)
https://biotechnologyforbiofuels.biomedcentral.com/articles

[morganism]

 Backing Up the Power Grid With Green Methanol

A closed-loop storage-plus-power system stockpiles renewable energy wherever it's needed

 It would be great if everyone could back up the intermittent power from wind and solar plants with energy stored as low-cost, zero-carbon hydrogen gas. But hydrogen can be hard to store.

Last month, when the Royal Society advised the British government to start building underground caverns to store megatons of hydrogen gas, it noted that the United Kingdom would need to store 1,000 times as much energy in this way as its pumped hydropower reservoirs can hold, and far more than batteries can feasibly provide. And the U.K. is fortunate to have hollowed-out underground salt deposits in which to put the gas. Others do not. The Pacific coast of the United States, for instance, has no appropriate geological formations. They are also rare across China, Africa, and South America.

Such cavern-challenged places may instead benefit from a creative workaround developed by German researchers: converting hydrogen to methanol. “Methanol presents a nice alternative to hydrogen, since as a liquid you can store it in tanks anywhere,” says energy-modeling expert Tom Brown, who heads the Department of Digital Transformation in Energy Systems at the Technische Universität Berlin.

Today in the journal Joule, Brown and Johannes Hampp, a doctoral researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, in Germany, report that storing energy as methanol can be cost effective. The key is to integrate equipment producing hydrogen, methanol, and electricity, all of which are being commercialized or are in industrial development.

Low-carbon methanol production is already scaling up to replace the dirty bunker fuel that propels big ships. And the specific type of power generator required has been demonstrated at a 25-megawatt plant in Texas.

The LaPorte, Texas, generating station, covered by IEEE Spectrum in 2018 along with process inventor Rodney Allam, burns natural gas with pure oxygen from a dedicated air separator. The Allam cycle, which bears his name, combusts fuel in a circulating stream of carbon dioxide that’s heated and compressed to form a pseudoliquid known as a supercritical fluid. After the supercritical gas expands to drive a turbine generator, excess carbon dioxide created by the combustion reaction is easily bled off. This allows a process to capture the carbon without the inefficiencies associated with separating carbon dioxide from a regular turbine’s exhaust.

NET Power, the LaPorte plant’s developer may sell the captured carbon dioxideto oil fields, which use it to boost petroleum extraction. That would diminish the Allam cycle’s climate-benefiting effect. But investors seem unfazed: NET Power raised over US $675 million earlier this year to build a 300-MW commercial-scale plant in Texas, which the company plans to start operating in 2026.

Repurposing the Allam cycle to burn methanol in an all-renewable energy system was first proposed in 2019 by engineers at the Netherlands’ University of Twente. Their integrated storage system, a closed loop that contains the Allam cycle, works as follows:

    Electrolysis splits water molecules into their constituent elements, hydrogen and oxygen;
    Hydrogen is made to react with carbon dioxide, producing methanol;
    Methanol is stored in tanks until required as a backup for shortfalls in renewable power     generation;
    Methanol and oxygen are burned in the Allam cycle to generate power; and
    Surplus carbon dioxide loops back to step No. 2, where it is used to synthesize more methanol.

(more)

https://spectrum.ieee.org/methanol-energy-storage

[morganism]

Biomethane Production on Peat Soils Leads to Higher CO2 Emissions than Natural Gas

(...)
 Impact of Peatland Drainage
The principle behind biomethane is that the carbon released during its combustion was recently absorbed from the atmosphere via photosynthesis, creating a closed carbon cycle. However, when peatlands are drained to grow crops or trees, carbon stored in the soil for centuries is exposed to oxygen and released as carbon dioxide, adding substantial additional emissions.

UKCEH's field flux measurements show that while each cubic metre of natural gas burned emits the equivalent of 2 kg of CO2, cultivating maize on drained peatland emits up to 6 kg of CO2 per cubic metre of biomethane produced. This figure excludes additional emissions from fertilisers, harvesting, transport, or the actual biomethane production process.

Surge in Maize Cultivation
The area of drained peatland used for maize cultivation in the UK increased from 6,000 hectares in 2015 to more than 11,000 hectares in 2021, with the proportion of maize grown for bioenergy rising from 20% to 34% during the same period.

However, the researchers noted that not all forms of bioenergy production on peat soils result in higher emissions. For example, growing biomass crops in agricultural peatlands with higher water levels-a method called paludiculture-could help mitigate climate change. Professor Evans also pointed out that using maize as a "break crop" within rotational farming systems is less harmful than dedicating entire areas of peatland solely to biomethane production.

The study also indicates that growing maize on mineral soils, rather than peat, leads to lower soil carbon losses, making this a more effective approach for reducing emissions.

Improving Policy Decisions
The production of biomethane in the UK has increased four-fold since 2000, supported by government initiatives like the Green Gas Support Scheme and the Renewable Heat Incentive. However, the study's findings suggest a need for more nuanced decision-making to ensure bioenergy production does not lead to unintended environmental consequences.

Dr Rebecca Rowe, co-author of the study, emphasized: "The transition to net zero won't be completely smooth. Along with the successes, there will be failures and unintended consequences. Our role, as scientists, is to support the Government, land managers, and industry by providing them with the best up-to-date knowledge on the impacts of their actions so they can make informed decisions about energy crop production and land use."

https://www.biofueldaily.com/reports/Biomethane_Production_on_Peat_Soils_Leads_to_Higher_CO2_Emissions_than_Natural_Gas_Study_Finds_999.html

....
Biomethane produced from maize grown on peat emits more CO2 than natural gas

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-02111-1

Biomethane is the main fuel component of biogas, a mixture of methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2), produced by means of anaerobic digestion of organic matter. Production of biomethane as fuel has increased fourfold since 20001. A principal driver of this increase has been the climate mitigation benefits of generating energy from materials such as food and livestock waste or recently photosynthesized crop biomass, such that the net emission of CO2 to the atmosphere is close to zero. The bioenergy industry estimates that biomethane production via anaerobic digestion has the potential to reduce GHG emissions by 10–13% and meet 6–9% of global primary energy demand2. To achieve these amounts, however, it will be necessary to greatly expand the cultivation of feedstocks such as maize (Zea mays) grown specifically for biomethane production to occupy ∼7% of the present global agricultural land area.

The assumption of low emissions from crop-based biomethane depends critically on the carbon balance of the land on which the crop is grown. On a mineral soil, it is reasonable to assume an approximately neutral carbon balance, with the export of recently assimilated carbon in harvested biomass having little impact on the long-term soil carbon balance. Where crops are grown on peat, however, this assumption does not hold. All forms of conventional agriculture on peat require drainage, exposing peat to oxidation and driving rapid and sustained soil CO2 emissions. Cultivated peatlands are estimated to have the highest GHG emission intensity of any agricultural land globally4, generating 2–3% of all anthropogenic GHG emissions5,6.

In addition to food production, drained peatlands are increasingly used to produce biomass for bioenergy. Biodiesel derived from palm oil produced on tropical peat may result in 3–40 times more GHG emissions than fossil diesel7. This finding led the US Environmental Protection Agency to exclude biodiesel derived from palm oil as a renewable fuel in 20118 and the European Union to recently announce a phase-out of palm oil in biofuels by 20309. So far, however, production of biomethane feedstock crops on peat, notably in Europe, has not received such critical attention.

Taking the United Kingdom as a case study, the area of maize cultivation on drained peat (>40 cm) and peaty soils (soils with <40 cm of peat remaining as a result of long-term wastage) has risen from ∼6,000 ha in 2015 (the first year for which national activity data are available) to >11,000 ha in 2020–202110. Over the same period, the proportion of UK maize grown for biomethane production increased from 20% to 34%11. Assuming that the fraction of maize grown on peat being used for this purpose corresponds with the UK national average, this represents a threefold increase in maize cultivation for biogas on peat soils. Contributory factors in this growth have been government financial support for biogas production through the Renewable Heat Incentive (2011–2021) and Green Gas Support Scheme (2021–2025), policies that are intended to support energy sector decarbonization.
(more)

[morganism]

Cobalt copper tandem catalysts transform CO2 into renewable ethanol


Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have unveiled a pioneering approach to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into ethanol, providing a sustainable alternative for chemical applications and energy storage. This technique, led by Professor Carsten Streb from JGU's Department of Chemistry, offers a pathway to repurpose CO2 emissions as part of a closed-loop carbon cycle, with the potential for wider use in industry. "We can remove the greenhouse gas CO2 from the environment and reintroduce it into a sustainable carbon cycle," said Streb.

His research focuses on transforming CO2 into ethanol through electrocatalysis. When combined with green energy sources, this process could reduce the reliance on food crops, such as corn, that are traditionally used to produce ethanol for fuel. Streb added that while the process currently operates on a laboratory scale, it holds promise for larger-scale applications. Findings from the study are now published in 'ACS Catalysis'.

Cobalt-Copper Catalysts Achieve High Selectivity in CO2 Conversion
The electrochemical transformation of CO2 to multicarbon compounds, such as ethanol, is an efficient way to capture CO2 and produce valuable materials for industrial use. However, success hinges on using catalysts that can achieve high selectivity, ensuring a high yield of ethanol. "To achieve this, we require suitable catalysts capable of this conversion with high selectivity so that we obtain a high yield of the desired product, which - in our case - is ethanol," explained Streb.

The research team engineered a specialized electrode, carefully coated with a black cobalt-copper powder in precise amounts and positioning. This tandem setup allows cobalt to initially break down the strong bonds within CO2, producing carbon monoxide. The copper component then catalyzes the conversion from carbon monoxide to ethanol, a process that only succeeds when both metals are correctly positioned on the electrode. "The initial challenge is to get carbon dioxide to react," said Streb. "The bonds between the atoms of the molecule are very strong, but cobalt can break them."

Boosting Efficiency for Broader Application
Currently, the method achieves 80 percent selectivity in converting CO2 to ethanol, the highest reported so far. Dr. Soressa Abera Chala, a lead author on the study, was instrumental in this optimization as a Humboldt Research Fellow at JGU. Co-authors Dr. Rongji Liu and Dr. Ekemena Oseghe also contributed to the research as Humboldt fellows. Efforts are underway to enhance this selectivity to between 90 and 95 percent, with the goal of eventually achieving 100 percent, where only ethanol is produced as the end product.
(more)

https://www.energy-daily.com/reports/Cobalt_Copper_Tandem_Catalysts_Transform_CO2_Into_Renewable_Ethanol_999.html