Carbon Dioxide Capture and Recycling to Methanol: Building a Carbon-Neutral Methanol Economy

Increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration a associated global warming can be linked directly to rising anthropogenic CO2 emissions. These emissions, outpacing the natural carbon cycle, originate predominantly from the burning of finite fossil fuel resources. As a unified solution to the challenges of global warming and energy-needs issues, a sustainable and renewable "methanol economy" concept has been proposed. Methanol, the simplest alcohol, is already utilized on a large scale as a carbon feedstock for synthesizing a plethora of organic compounds. Furthermore, methanol is a convenient liquid fuel and an attractive energy carrier. Chemical recycling of CO2, a greenhouse gas, to produce methanol, a green fuel, is of paramount importance for a carbon-neutral methanol economy. Recent advances in this research area are discussed with a focus on low-temperature homogeneous catalysis. In addition, this review provides a detailed discussion of integrated CO2 capture, including direct air capture (DAC) and recycling into methanol-a research field that has gained significant attention over the past five years.