An investigation of synthetic fuel production via chemical looping

Producing liquid hydrocarbon fuels with a reduced greenhouse gas emissions profile would ease the transition to a carbon-neutral energy sector with the transportation industry being the immediate beneficiary followed by the power industry. Revolutionary solutions in transportation, such as electricity and hydrogen, depend on the deployment of carbon capture and storage technologies and/or renewable energy systems. Additionally, high oil prices may increase the development of unconventional sources, such as tar sands, that have a higher emissions profile. One process that is gaining interest is a system for producing reduced carbon fuels though chemical looping technologies. An investigation of the implications of such a process using methane and carbon dioxide that is reformed to yield methanol has been done. An important aspect of the investigation is the use of off-the-shelf technologies to achieve the results. The ability of the process to yield reduced emissions fuels depends on the source for the feed and process heat. For the range of conditions considered, the emissions profile of methanol produced in this method varies from 0.475 to 1.645 moles carbon dioxide per mole methanol. The upper bound can be lowered to 0.750 by applying CCS and/ or using nonfossil heat sources for the reforming. The process provides an initial pathway to incorporate CO2 into fuels independent of electrolytic hydrogen or developments in other sectors of the economy.