CO2 conversion covers a wide range of possible application areas from fuels to bulk and commodity chemicals and even to specialty products with biological activity such as pharmaceuticals. In the present review, we discuss selected examples in these areas in a combined analysis of the state-of-the-art of synthetic methodologies and processes with their life cycle assessment. Thereby, we attempted to assess the potential to reduce the environmental footprint in these application fields relative to the current petrochemical value chain. This analysis and discussion differs significantly from a viewpoint on CO2 utilization as a measure for global CO2 mitigation. Whereas the latter focuses on reducing the end-of-pipe problem “CO2 emissions” from todays’ industries, the approach taken here tries to identify opportunities by exploiting a novel feedstock that avoids the utilization of fossil resource in transition toward more sustainable future production. Thus, the motivation to develop CO2-based chemistry does...

Sustainable Conversion of Carbon Dioxide: An Integrated Review of Catalysis and Life Cycle Assessment

The continuously increasing share of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and EU targets for CO2 reduction and energy efficiency necessitate significant changes both on technical and regulatory level. Environmental challenges of CO2 emissions are assessed in a review of CO2 capture and utilisation technologies, offering new opportunities in CO2 economy. Commercial applications in the thermal power and industrial sector for pre and post combustion capture as well as the potential of direct air CO2 capture are reviewed. The potential of Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) is assessed focusing on the use of CO2 for fuel as well as for combined heat and power production. Combining CCU with energy storage as an evolutionary measure for balancing RES with thermal power under the power to fuel concept presents high market potentials for fuel and chemical production. Moreover, the recent progress in supercritical CO2 cycles for combined heat and power production is reported.

The CO2 economy: Review of CO2 capture and reuse technologies

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the major contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the main driver of climate change. Currently, CO2 utilization is increasingly attracting interest in processes like enhanced oil recovery and coal bed methane and it has the potential to be used in hydraulic fracturing processes, among others. In this review, the latest developments in CO2 capture, utilization, conversion, and sequestration are examined through a multi-scale perspective. The diverse range of CO2 utilization applications, including mineralization, biological utilization, food and beverages, energy storage media, and chemicals, is comprehensively presented. We also discuss the worldwide research and development of CO2 utilization projects. Lastly, we examine the key challenges and issues that must be faced for pilot-scale and industrial applications in the future. This study demonstrates that CO2 utilization can be a driver for the future development of carbon capture and utilization technologies. However, considering the amount of CO2 produced globally, even if it can be reduced in the near-to mid-term future, carbon capture and storage will remain the primary strategy and, so, complementary strategies are desirable. Currently, the main CO2 utilization industry is enhanced oil and gas recovery, but considering the carbon life cycle, these processes still add CO2 to the atmosphere. In order to implement other CO2 utilization technologies at a large scale, in addition to their current technical feasibility, their economic and societal viability is critical. Therefore, future efforts should be directed toward reduction of energy penalties and costs, and the introduction of policies and regulation encouraging carbon capture, utilization and storage, and increasing the public acceptance of the strategies in a complementary manner.

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Recent advances in carbon dioxide utilization

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) community has been struggling over the past few decades to demonstrate the economic feasibility of CO2 sequestration Nevertheless, in practice, it has only proven feasible under conditions with a market for the recovered CO2, such as in the beverage industry or enhanced oil/gas recovery The research community and industry are progressively converging to a conclusion that CO2 sequestration has severe limitations for the value proposition Alternatively, creating diverse demand markets and revenue streams for the recovered almost-pure CO2 may prevail over CO2 sequestration option and improve the economic feasibility of this climate change mitigation approach As such, research in the carbon capture and management field is seen to be shifting towards CO2 utilization, directly and indirectly, in energy and chemical industries In this paper, we have critically reviewed the literature on carbon capture, conversion, and utilization routes and assessed the progress in the research and developments in this direction Both physical and chemical CO2 utilization pathways are studied and the principles of key routes are identified The literature is also probed in addressing the process integration scenarios and the performance assessment benchmarks

Trends in CO2 conversion and utilization: A review from process systems perspective

Transformation technologies for CO2 utilisation: Current status, challenges and future prospects

Analysis for flexible operation of supercritical CO2 Brayton cycle integrated with solar thermal systems

This paper explores a possible ‘methanol economy’ transition strategy—a novel carbon capture and utilization (CCU) configuration for methanol (MeOH) production (CCU–MeOH). In this CCU–MeOH, the captured CO2 is co-fed with natural gas (NG) to produce syngas suitable for MeOH synthesis. The main objective of this work is to compare two aspects, namely CO2 emission intensity and the extent of methane reliance, of six CCU–MeOH scenarios derived from four reforming methodologies (steam methane reforming (SMR), dry methane reforming (DMR), bireforming and trireforming). Among the studied CCU–MeOH scenarios, Scenario 2 (DMR with H2 addition) significantly outperformed the other scenarios by 12.7% and 22% on average in terms of CO2 emission intensity and methane reliance, respectively. The outperformance of Scenario 2 in CO2 emission intensity is found to originate from a 22% reduction in CH4 consumption on average compared to the other scenarios. In intermediate term, Scenario 2 may provide an attractive option for transitioning into ‘methanol economy’ of the future.

A comparative study of CO2 utilization in methanol synthesis with various syngas production technologies

Dynamic modelling and start-up operation of a solar-assisted recompression supercritical CO2 Brayton power cycle

Electrical power generation by closed loop Brayton cycle using supercritical CO 2 (sCO 2 ) as a working fluid has gained significant interest in recent years. Integrating sCO 2 cycle with renewable energy technology (i.e. solar heliostat field) at high temperature ranges has shown promising results. This study highlights the thermodynamic benefits of recompression sCO 2 Brayton cycle and presents a modelling and control strategy to optimize operating conditions for a constant power output utilising solar- and fossil-based heat sources. This optimization maximizes solar field contribution and minimizes the role of auxiliary fossil-fuelled back-up (AFB) heating system. The performances of two common solar heat input (direct and indirect) configurations are compared. It is found that for a specific day, an indirect cycle consumes 19.5% less fossil fuel compared to an equivalent direct cycle. This is mainly attributed to the usage of thermal energy storage (TES) in the indirect cycle. However, the high capital cost of TES and operability/controllability issues may decrease the merits of the indirect cycle. Although the reliance on fossil fuel contribution in direct cycle is higher by a magnitude of 4.2% or less, this may be economically admissible compared to the substantial reduction in capital cost as in the case of indirect cycle.

Minh Tri Luu

Papers

Analysis for flexible operation of supercritical CO2 Brayton cycle integrated with solar thermal systems

A comparative study of CO2 utilization in methanol synthesis with various syngas production technologies

Dynamic modelling and start-up operation of a solar-assisted recompression supercritical CO2 Brayton power cycle

A comparative study of solar heliostat assisted supercritical CO2 recompression Brayton cycles: Dynamic modelling and control strategies

Optimizing an advanced hybrid of solar-assisted supercritical CO2 Brayton cycle: A vital transition for low-carbon power generation industry