Methanol from Syngas Research and Development

September 22nd, 2020

Methanol from Syngas Research and Development

This research project seeks to develop an innovative, miniaturised process technology for synthesising renewable methanol from bio-syngas and to demonstrate the technology in a laboratory-scale pilot plant for engineering and economic studies.

Lead participants:

University of Western Australia (UWA)

 Classification:

Research and development

 

 Status:

In progress

 Estimated cost:

AUD$2.9 million
Research partners:

Anergy Pty Ltd

 Main supply chain category:

Hydrogen carrier

 Location:

Western Australia, Australia

 Announced funding:

AUD$1.07 million – Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA)

Research description

This research project seeks to develop an innovative, miniaturised process technology for synthesising renewable methanol from biomass pyrolysis syngas and to demonstrate the technology in a laboratory-scale pilot plant for engineering evaluation and process economic studies.

Methanol can be manufactured from renewable resources, is easily transported and stored in liquid form, and can be readily converted to hydrogen at the point of use or used directly as a low-carbon transport fuel.

The research has a number of innovative elements:

  • highly active and robust catalysts suitable for small-scale methanol synthesis would be designed, prepared and evaluated.
  • micro-reactor configurations, including multi-tubular reactor and structured catalytic monolith reactor, would be constructed and evaluated.
  • the chosen micro-reactor would be incorporated with biomass pyrolysis in a laboratory-scale pilot plant to demonstrate the operability of the technology.
  • Process design, simulation, and technical/economic analyses would be performed.

More details on the research, including contact information, can be found at the ARENA webpage for this project

This research project was part of a suite of projects for which ARENA announced AUD$22.1 million of funding in September 2018.

This description is based on publicly available information as at June 2020.