TY - JOUR
T1 - Towards Solar Methanol
T2 - Past, Present, and Future
AU - Tountas, Athanasios A.
AU - Peng, Xinyue
AU - Tavasoli, Alexandra V.
AU - Duchesne, Paul N.
AU - Dingle, Thomas L.
AU - Dong, Yuchan
AU - Hurtado, Lourdes
AU - Mohan, Abhinav
AU - Sun, Wei
AU - Ulmer, Ulrich
AU - Wang, Lu
AU - Wood, Thomas E.
AU - Maravelias, Christos T.
AU - Sain, Mohini M.
AU - Ozin, Geoffrey A.
N1 - Funding Information:
T.L.D., Y.D., L.H., A.M., W.S., U.U., L.W., and T.E.W. contributed equally to this work. G.A.O. who spearheads the U of T Solar Fuels Group acknowledges funding from the Ontario Low Carbon Innovation Fund (LCIF) and the Ontario Center of Excellence Ontario 2030 Award. G.A.O. and M.M.S. gratefully recognize the strong and sustained support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Special thanks to Keshav Raina of the Faculty of Forestry for proofreading the manuscript. Thank you to X.P. and C.T.M. for the TEA methodology development, implementation and sustained collaboration. Graphical art science illustration courtesy of Dr. Chenxi Qian. A.A.T. would like to thank Professor C. A. Mims for E-Z Solve modeling advice. A.V.T., P.N.D., and U.U. edited the manuscript, L.H. contributed to references, and Y.D. helped in obtaining permissions. L.H. acknowledges the support of the Postdoctoral Fellowship SECITI (066/2017), P.N.D. acknowledges the support of the Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship (NSERC PDF) program of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and U.U. acknowledges an Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Postdoctoral Fellowship. The authors acknowledge Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License for Figure 5, left. This article is part of the Advanced Science 5th anniversary interdisciplinary article series, in which the journal’s executive advisory board members highlight top research in their fields. Note: Several changes were made on April 17, 2019 after initial online publication. 1) The first affiliation address was corrected. 2) In the last sentence of section 2.3.1, “Cu oxygenates” was corrected to “C oxygenates.” 3) In section 8.2.1, the quantum yield is “similar to” instead of “also referred to as” the internal quantum efficiency. 4) In section 10, the “volumetric density” was changed to the “volumetric energy density.”
Funding Information:
T.L.D., Y.D., L.H., A.M., W.S., U.U., L.W., and T.E.W. contributed equally to this work. G.A.O. who spearheads the U of T Solar Fuels Group acknowledges funding from the Ontario Low Carbon Innovation Fund (LCIF) and the Ontario Center of Excellence Ontario 2030 Award. G.A.O. and M.M.S. gratefully recognize the strong and sustained support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Special thanks to Keshav Raina of the Faculty of Forestry for proofreading the manuscript. Thank you to X.P. and C.T.M. for the TEA methodology development, implementation and sustained collaboration. Graphical art science illustration courtesy of Dr. Chenxi Qian. A.A.T. would like to thank Professor C. A. Mims for E-Z Solve modeling advice. A.V.T., P.N.D., and U.U. edited the manuscript, L.H. contributed to references, and Y.D. helped in obtaining permissions. L.H. acknowledges the support of the Postdoctoral Fellowship SECITI (066/2017), P.N.D. acknowledges the support of the Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship (NSERC PDF) program of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and U.U. acknowledges an Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Postdoctoral Fellowship. The authors acknowledge Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License for Figure, left. This article is part of the Advanced Science 5th anniversary interdisciplinary article series, in which the journal's executive advisory board members highlight top research in their fields. Note: Several changes were made on April 17, 2019 after initial online publication. 1) The first affiliation address was corrected. 2) In the last sentence of section 2.3.1, ?Cu oxygenates? was corrected to ?C oxygenates.? 3) In section 8.2.1, the quantum yield is ?similar to? instead of ?also referred to as? the internal quantum efficiency. 4) In section 10, the ?volumetric density? was changed to the ?volumetric energy density.?
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Authors. Published by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
PY - 2019/4/17
Y1 - 2019/4/17
N2 - This work aims to provide an overview of producing value-added products affordably and sustainably from greenhouse gases (GHGs). Methanol (MeOH) is one such product, and is one of the most widely used chemicals, employed as a feedstock for ≈30% of industrial chemicals. The starting materials are analogous to those feeding natural processes: water, CO 2 , and light. Innovative technologies from this effort have global significance, as they allow GHG recycling, while providing society with a renewable carbon feedstock. Light, in the form of solar energy, assists the production process in some capacity. Various solar strategies of continually increasing technology readiness levels are compared to the commercial MeOH process, which uses a syngas feed derived from natural gas. These strategies include several key technologies, including solar-thermochemical, photochemical, and photovoltaic–electrochemical. Other solar-assisted technologies that are not yet commercial-ready are also discussed. The commercial-ready technologies are compared using a technoeconomic analysis, and the scalability of solar reactors is also discussed in the context of light-incorporating catalyst architectures and designs. Finally, how MeOH compares against other prospective products is briefly discussed, as well as the viability of the most promising solar MeOH strategy in an international context.
AB - This work aims to provide an overview of producing value-added products affordably and sustainably from greenhouse gases (GHGs). Methanol (MeOH) is one such product, and is one of the most widely used chemicals, employed as a feedstock for ≈30% of industrial chemicals. The starting materials are analogous to those feeding natural processes: water, CO 2 , and light. Innovative technologies from this effort have global significance, as they allow GHG recycling, while providing society with a renewable carbon feedstock. Light, in the form of solar energy, assists the production process in some capacity. Various solar strategies of continually increasing technology readiness levels are compared to the commercial MeOH process, which uses a syngas feed derived from natural gas. These strategies include several key technologies, including solar-thermochemical, photochemical, and photovoltaic–electrochemical. Other solar-assisted technologies that are not yet commercial-ready are also discussed. The commercial-ready technologies are compared using a technoeconomic analysis, and the scalability of solar reactors is also discussed in the context of light-incorporating catalyst architectures and designs. Finally, how MeOH compares against other prospective products is briefly discussed, as well as the viability of the most promising solar MeOH strategy in an international context.
KW - commercial methanol production
KW - solar methanol
KW - solar reactor design and engineering
KW - solar-assisted processes
KW - technoeconomic analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85061920290&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1002/advs.201801903
DO - 10.1002/advs.201801903
M3 - Review article
C2 - 31016111
AN - SCOPUS:85061920290
SN - 2198-3844
VL - 6
JO - Advanced Science
JF - Advanced Science
IS - 8
M1 - 1801903
ER -