In Brazil, Braskem announced a collaboration with the University of British Columbia (UBC) to explore the feasibility of using an electrochemical reactor to produce methanol from CO, an important intermediate that can be obtained from CO2 Capture and Conversion.
The project, which will last one year, is fully funded by Braskem as part of its efforts to explore more sustainable production alternatives.
“Methanol is an important product for the chemical industry that can be used as feedstock for several productive processes. The electrochemical route to be explored in this project aims at obtaining a low carbon footprint product and reducing the production costs of the overall integrated solution, making it more economically attractive,” said Márcio Rebouças, Head of Braskem’s Decarbonization Technologies Platform.
The collaboration could provide a process that has a positive impact against climate change since the production of methanol from previously captured CO2 has a potentially lower carbon footprint, the company said.
“We are thrilled to collaborate with Braskem to demonstrate the conversion of CO into methanol in a membrane reactor for the first time”, said Curtis Berlinguette, Principal Investigator and Professor of Chemistry and Chemical and Biological Engineering at UBC. “My team has previously shown that our membrane reactor, which we call “Thor”, is capable of driving the production of hydrogen peroxide, biodiesel, and pharmaceuticals using only water and electricity. This project with Braskem provides an exciting opportunity to expand Thor’s scope to include methanol production.”
More on the story.
Tags: Braskem, Brazil, carbon monoxide, methanol
Category: Research
