Fraunhofer ISE demos methanol production from industrial waste gases

In Germany, methanol plays an important role for industry as a commodity chemical and is presently considered one of the key energy carriers in the rising hydrogen economy. However, conventional methanol production from coal and natural gas generates large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. With the project “Carbon2Chem®”, partners from industry, research and academia have made it their mission to explore processes for producing methanol from industrial waste gases using the steel industry as an example. For the first time, the long-term stability of methanol synthesis from actual, purified blast furnace gas has now been demonstrated in a Fraunhofer ISE miniplant with a production capacity of ten liters per day over a total of more than 5,000 hours. In 2018, thyssenkrupp provided the proof-of-concept for methanol production from blast furnace gas within this project.