Korea develops carbon dioxide to methanol process

Researchers at the Korean Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) Nanotechnology Research Center are developing a process to convert carbon dioxide into methanol to effectively use the greenhouse gases in the combustion process. A medium-sized plant capable of producing 100 kg/day of methanol will be put into operation in KIST in April 2002 and is now being field tested in a power plant.
According to reports, this process is to use carbon dioxide and hydrogen through ZnAl204 catalyst at 600 °C and atmospheric pressure, using water - gas reverse conversion reaction to generate carbon dioxide and water, the product drying water, into the methanol synthesis reactor, carbon dioxide and unreacted hydrogen Methanol was produced by a combination of a CuO/ZnO/ZrO2/Al2O3 catalyst at a temperature of 250[deg.] C. and a pressure of 5 MPa.
The cost of producing methanol for this process is about US$300/ton, which is an expensive method for producing methanol. The cost of methanol production for a large-scale methanol plant that is planned to be constructed is expected to be less than US$100/ton. Despite this, several companies have been interested in this process, but they are mainly used to convert CO2 to CO.