Methanol chemistry

The authors thank the members of the Inorganic Chemistry Department at the Fritz Haber Institute Berlin for their contributions to this chapter. Sud-Chemie AG Bruck-miihl (now Clariant) and Martin Muher and his group at Ruhr-University Bochum are acknowledged for a long-standing and fruitful collaboration 

Methanol-containing fuels (MW50, 50% methanol and 50% water) have also been used as a synthetic fuel for temporarily increased performance of aircrafts during the Second World War. 

Methanol is particularly interesting because it can be produced by hydrogenation of the greenhouse gas C02 (see Section 5.3.5). Thus, anthropogenic C02 (e.g. from industrial exhaust or coal power plants) could be used for its manufacture. The amount of C02 emitted upon methanol combustion is then equal to the amount consumed during its production. Such C02 recycling via methanol has been proposed by Olah et al. [2] as a carbon-neutral methanol economy.  

Methanol production today is not a sustainable process but is part of a petrochemical route for conversion of fossil carbon into chemicals and fuels (see Section 5.3.3). It has to be emphasized that a one-to-one upscaling of existing industrial methanol synthesis capacities for fuel production is not useful. This is mainly because the current industrial process has not been developed and optimized under the boundary conditions of conversion of anthropogenic C02, but rather for synthesis gas feeds derived from fossil sources such as natural gas or coal. The switch to an efficient large-scale methanol synthesis with a neutral C02 footprint is still a major scientific and engineering challenge, and further research and catalyst and process optimization is urgently needed to realize the idea of a sustainable methanol economy.  

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A route to ethyl alcohol based on methanol chemistry is grabbing a small but increasing share of the pie. The process has three steps. The methanol is reacted with carbon monoxide in the liquid phase in the presence of a catalyst to form acetic acid. 

Methanol chemistry Methyl formate chemistry Formaldehyde chemistry... 

The surface modification by O, S, and C atoms and its effects on the methanol chemistry has been investigated on several metal surfaces. It has been reported that these modifier atoms stabilize methoxyl species on Fe(lOO) 18,19), Ni(l 10) 28), Mo(lOO) 4) and W(112) 38 The stabilization of methoxyl species has been ascribed to the blocking of the sites necessary for the methoxyl decomposition. 

This chapter focuses on the catalytic aspects of methanol chemistry and covers thermodynamic, kinetic, chemical engineering, and materials science aspects. It provides brief introductions into these topics with the aim of establishing an overview of the state of the art of methanol chemistry with only a snapshot of the relevant literature. It highlights what the authors think are the most relevant aspects and future challenges for energy-related catalytic reactions of methanol. It is not meant to provide a complete literature overview on methanol synthesis and reforming. 

Olah GA (2013) Towards oil independence through renewable methanol chemistry. Angew Chem Int Ed 52 104-107... 

Okada, T, Satou, H. emd Yuasa, (20(B) M. Effects of Additives on Oxygen Reduction Kinetics at the Interface between Platinum and Perfluorinated lonomer. Langmuir 19, 2325-2332 Osawa, M. (1997) Dynamic Processes in Electrochemiceil Reactions Studied by Surface-Enhanced Infrared Absorption Spectroscopy (SEIRAS). Bull. Chem. Soc. Jpn. 70, 2681-2880 Shiroishi, H., Ayato, Y, Kunimatsu, K. and Okada, T. (2004) Effect of Additives on Electrochemical Reduction of Oxygen in the Presence of Methanol. Chemistry Lett. 33,792-793 Shiroishi, H., Ayato, Y., Okada, T. and Kunimatsu, K. (2(X)5) Mechanism of Selective Oxygen Reduction on Platinum by 2-2 -Bipyridine in the Presence of Methanol. Langmuir 21, 3037-3043... 

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