Methanol production from captured CO₂ using hydrogenation and reforming technologies- environmental and economic evaluation

Minimizing CO₂ emission into the atmosphere to prevent climate change has required immense efforts from us. Flue gases from fossil fuel-based power plants and many heavy industries are considered main anthropogenic sources of releasing CO₂. Although there is a popular solution to mitigate CO₂ through CO₂ capture and storage, its cost is still quite significant, and this prevents broad application. A newly proposed process to convert flue gases into methanol has grabbed a headline because it offers an opportunity to alleviate CO₂ emissions and delivers a way to produce methanol (MeOH) from recycling feedstock. In this work, three approaches for mitigating CO₂ including hydrogenation, bi- and tri-reforming are investigated for methanol production at three different capacities (300, 1500, and 3500 ton/day). The environmental and economic consequences are evaluated as a primary implementation for green process design. These evaluations pointed out that the processes based on reforming are the most appropriate direction for employment during the transition step of producing methanol from a carbon-based- to carbon-free program whereas the hydrogenation-based processes with hydrogen from renewable sources could be the proper implementation scenarios for a long-term plan to obtain near-zero emissions.