How to make Methanol with involving electricity

[Jacquesl]

How to make Methanol with involving electricity

Are there any method on making Methanol with electricity, H2O and CO2?

2 CH3OH + 3 O2 → 2 CO2 + 4 H2O

 

[Astronuc]

See - Ethanol for drinking, Ethanol for fuel., which contains some information on methanol production, which is essentially a thermochemical reaction. It would be rather inefficient to use electricity.

 

[Jacquesl]

Thanks Astronuc, you have some nice links there, but I’m not able to see a procedure to involve electricity in the process, I know it won't be a smart way of making Methanol, but I’m busy in doing a chase study with things like it

 

[Astronuc]

Because the process uses catalysts and CO and H₂, it would not use electricity, but thermochemistry on an industrial scale. Using electricity would unnecessarily increase the cost.

 

[Jacquesl]

If in this case let's say, if I want to store energy from electricity to fuel form. What will you choose?

(1) Electricity to hydrogen
(2) Electricity to methanol

To my understanding:

(1) Hydrogen is easier to product than methanol. It’s more difficult or more dangerous to store it because of its gas state.
(2) Methanol is more difficult to make but is easier to store because of its liquid state.

 

[chemisttree]

The following link is that of a report that discusses the electrical production of carbon monoxide from carbon dioxide.
http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/article.asp?doi=c39840000328

This report is for a process that produces methanol from carbon monoxide (the product from the link above) and water.

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=9058798

I haven't read either of them so I can't comment further but they are both common journals that should be easy to locate at your local university library.

Good luck...

 

[eaboujaoudeh]

i have a point to make regarding hydrogen. Hydrogen is not more dangerous to store than gasoline, at least not by a wide margin as most ppl think. the problem is that its inefficient to store as a gas, so they have to store it as a liquid, which adds to the cost of hydrogen. so the difficulty in Hydrogen is the cost vs methanol which is cheaper. but in the future hydrogen has a bright one

 

[chemisttree]

This is a copy of my post from the other thread...

From a safety perspective, hydrogen requires more effort to handle safely. If it is handled under pressure, the cylinder must be rented (monthly demurrage) or purchased outright, it must be secured safely with clamps, kept away from oxidizers (20 minute fire wall, I believe), requires a pressure regulator specific for hydrogen. Non-sparking tools should be used to attach regulators. For only a liter of gas, a lecture bottle can be used. These are sold with the hydrogen and raise the cost of this minor amount of hydrogen significantly. Disposal of the empty lecture (small) cylinder should be done according to a safety plan that renders the cylinder inert and all markings must be removed, etc...

Methanol on the other hand only requires a metal can or glass bottle and a flammable cabinet. The usual MSDS, safety plan, right to know training, etc applies to both hydrogen and methanol.

A liter of methanol contains much more energy than a liter of hydrogen gas at 1 atmosphere and so the methanol can cause much more damage in an "event".

If you are asking about a liter of liquid hydrogen, multiply the danger and effort by a factor of about 100 for safe handling. In that case, methanol is orders of magnitude the much safer option.

 

[eaboujaoudeh]

well have you heard about the german cars running on hydrogen? its perfectly safe to have them in your car, so they are definitely safe to use elsewhere. i think I've mentioned this elsewehere, but here goes: The thing with hydrogen is that it burns upwards due to it being lighter than air. other fuels tend to settle to the ground while burning which burns ppl around them. The hindenburg accident showed that even though hydrogen is very flammable but the fact that it burned upwards some ppl survived, compare that to gasoline everyone in the vicinity would have died.

 

[Jacquesl]

So which one will have the highest efficiency then made.

Hydrogen or Methanol

And on which method will be needed to extract the energy out of the mediums for the highest output rating?

 

[eaboujaoudeh]

i know about hydrogen, but not sure about methanol