(329c) Alcohol Assisted Synthesis of Methanol from Synthesis Gas

Recently, the Consortium for Waste Circularity has advocated the use of “Regenerative Robust Gasification” to simplify waste collection and boost recycling rates. Robust Gasification refers to a type of gasifier that can accept everything in municipal solid waste (MSW) without the need for sorting. It promises to convert unsorted municipal waste, including multi-layer plastics, metallized flexible films, and many materials that are not conducive to traditional recycling, into synthesis gas (syngas). Since syngas is not easily transported, the conversion of syngas into a fungible, widely used chemical feedstock is proposed. As the backbone of C1 chemistry, methanol is an ideal target. Unlike the gas-phase methanol production widely used in industry, alcohol-assisted syngas to methanol process has different reaction mechanism, requires lower reaction temperature, therefore providing a new possible path.