Methanol consumption

If 10% of the U.S. gasoline consumption were replaced by methanol for a twenty year period, the required reserves of natural gas to support that methanol consumption would amount to about one trillion m (36 TCF) or twice the 1990 annual consumption. Thus the United States could easily support a substantial methanol program from domestic reserves. However, the value of domestic natural gas is quite high. Almost all of the gas has access through the extensive pipeline distribution system to industrial, commercial, and domestic markets and the value of gas in these markets makes methanol produced from domestic natural gas uncompetitive with gasoline and diesel fuel, unless oil prices are very high. 

The only other petrochemical feedstock of significant commercial use is methane (natural gas) which is used primarily to produce ammonia and methanol. Consumption factors are about 28 GJ and 31 GJ per metric ton, respectively (58,300 and 64,700 BTU/lb) (8). Approximately... 

World methanol consumption for 1992 is shown in Figure 10 (27). The principal use of methanol has traditionally been in the production of formaldehyde [50-00-0] where typically around 40% of the world methanol market is consumed. In the United States, an increasing role for methanol has been found in the oxygenated fuels market from the use of MTBE. Another significant use of methanol is in the production of acetic acid other uses include the production of solvents and chemical intermediates. 

Fig. 4 Variations of methanol consumption flux along the channel length with increasing the reformer temperature = 1 bar, W/F = 6.72 kg-s/mol)...

The beginning formation of small volatile hydrocarbons is associated with the formation of about the same amount of non volatile compounds retained on the catalyst. These adsorbed hydrogen deficient hydrocarbons increase the rate of methanol consumption. They are part of the reacting system. 

Methyl methacrylate, accounting for 4% of methanol consumption, is produced by the cyanohydrin process utilizing methanol. Methyl methacrylate is used to produce acrylic sheet, surface coating resin, and molding and extrusion powder. Also, there exist minor miscellaneous uses such as modification of acrylic fiber and polyester resin. 

For any dramatic increase in U.S. methanol consumption, most of the supply would have to be imported. While biomass-generated methanol might be economical in the long term, there is a considerable amount of so-called stranded natural gas in distant locations around the globe that could be converted to methanol and shipped by tanker at relatively low cost, should increased demand warrant such investment.24 Methanol from natural gas would have little or no net greenhouse gas benefits in a future fuel cell vehicle, as compared with future hybrid electric vehicles (see Chapter 8). 

In 2009, worldwide production of methanol was around 40 million metric tons. Although this amount represents only 0.01% of the worldwide gasoline production, it is nearly equivalent to the total biodiesel and bioethanol production [11], From this number, it is clear that a large-scale replacement of gasoline by methanol as fuel would require an enormous increase of worldwide methanol synthesis capacities. Today, chemical intermediates dominate methanol consumption. Formaldehyde a platform molecule for the synthesis of polymer resins - is responsible for nearly half of the total demand. Acetic acid, MTBE, and methyl methacrylate - a monomer -constitute another 25% [7, 12]. Direct fuel and additive usage accounts for 15% of demand but is expected to rise. 

Economics The methanol consumption for DME production is approximately 1.4 ton-methanol per ton-DME. 

Several direct uses of methanol have been significant in the past—for example, use as an automotive antifreeze and as an aircraft fuel additive— but both these uses claim only small amounts of present methanol consumption. Several direct uses have been suggested as potentially large markets for methanol in the future and are discussed in Section 6.1.6. 

In the mid-1970s, methanol consumption was predicted by two groups How well did these predictions compare with Figure 6.3, assuming that all methanol produced was consumed If you had an opportunity to interview the people who prepared these estimates, what questions would you ask ... 

Methanol Methanol was the main contributor to COD in the enrichment reactors. Methanol comprised 51-72% of the COD in the foul condensate wastes. This wide range was caused by the varying nature of the foul condensates, and ultimately, to the composition of the wood feedstocks entering the mill. The enriched consortia in all of the reactors consumed methanol to levels below the 100 mg l methanol (HPLC) detection limit by HRT 8 (Fig. 5a-c). This indicates fimctional stability in the system by HRT 8 with respect to methanol consumption. To ensure community stability in the reactors, as well as to assess the long-term functional stability of the consortia, the reactors were further run to... 

It has been predicted that until 1990 the methanol consumption will increase by 30 % as compared to 1984. This would mean 19.5 million tons per year to be produced in 1990, largely influenced by the increasing use of methanol in the fuel sector. 

All evidence points clearly in the direction that in the USA the legislative bodies, at least in a number of states, will enforce the use of neat methanol as a motor fuel. For California alone, this would mean that methanol consumption in motor fuel service there would be two and a half times as high as the current total methanol production in the world, and it would only be natural to build methanol plants in the USA whose capacities would be many times larger than today. This would considerably reduce the capital cost per ton of methanol, and the price differential between natural gas and coal would have a much greater effect on methanol production costs than with today s plant sizes. 

The operating efficiency of direct methanol fuel cells is greatly lowered because of methanol crossover. This effect leads to unproductive methanol consumption and to a marked decrease in working voltage, caused by the action of methanol on the oxygen electrode potential. So far, only two options can be seen to lessen or completely... 

Only a few examples exist in the literature that positively identify isolated species as the key to catalytic activity, two of which are TiO /SiOj [30] and ZrO /SiOj [31] for methanol oxidation (x indicates the surface oxide exists in noncrystalline form). In these cases, the highest turnover frequencies (TOFs) for methanol consumption were observed at the lowest tested concentrations of supported titanate and zirconate, where isolated Ti04 and Zr04 structures were shown to dominate. It was concluded that the number of Ti-O-Si and Zr-O-Si bonds were maximized in monomeric Ti and Zr sites, respectively. Significant TOF decreases concomitant with increasing surface oxide polymerization were rationalized to occur because the number of M-O-S bonds per active M site was reduced. 

Mass balance equations (4.194) and (4.195) enable us to formulate integral relations, which are valid regardless of the distribution of local current density. Equations (4.194) and (4.195) show that the rates of oxygen and methanol consumption differ only by a constant factor. 

Methanol is one of the largest volume eommodity chemicals produced in the world. World methanol capaeity has grown from 15.9 million t in 1983 to 22.1 million t in January 1991. Methanol consumption is increasing at a rate of about 11% per year during 19901995 [1]. This is largely attributed to inereasing demand for methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), which is one of the fastest growing chemicals in the world. 

Methanol has been used in a variety of applications, which can be divided into three cate ries feedstock for other chemicals, fuel use, and other direct uses as a solvent, antifreeze, inhibitor, or substrate. Primary and secondary derivatives or applications of methanol are summarized in Table 3. Chemical feedstock accounted for 62% of the total U.S. methanol consumption of 5.16 million t in 1990 fuel use for 27%, and other direct uses for 11% [1]. Growth in methanol consumption in the next few years will come lar ly from fuel use, especial MTBE [22, 23]. The demand pattern will chan. SRI (Stanford Research Institute) International forecasted that the fuel industry will become the lar st sector for U.S. methanol consumption in 1995. It will account for 54% of about 8.6 million ton methanol demand, followed by 39% as a chemical feedstock and 7% in other uses [1]. 

Methanol as a chemical feedstock, a fuel, or a fuel additive covers most present methanol consumption. Other uses of methanol, although small for each, are broad. New uses of methanol are being explored and have potential for substantial growth. These other uses can be classified into four areas solvent, antifreeze, inhibitor, and substrate. 

Methanol applications can be divided into three major end-user categories chemical feedstock, fuel and fuel additives, and miscellaneous applications. The first two users cover more than 95% of methanol consumption and are discussed in the previous chapters of this book [1, 2], This chapter focuses on various methanol applications that are not covered in previous discussions. Most of these applications utilize the physical properties of methanol, except for the production of single-cell protein and sewage treatment, which use methanol as a substrate to supply the energy needed in the growth of microorganisms. A brief discussion of each of these applications of methanol is given. 

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