Clariant's Catalysts for Methanol Synthesis Aid China's Carbon Neutrality Goal

TAGS:  Sustainability / Natural Coatings    

Clariant's MegaMax catalyst series for CO₂-based methanol production helps China reach its carbon neutrality target. Capturing and converting CO₂ emissions is a cornerstone of the technology roadmap for addressing climate change.

Synthesizing methanol from CO₂ is a particularly valuable approach because methanol forms a building block for thousands of chemical products such as paints, plastics, cosmetics, and fuels — including providing an energy storage carrier for hydrogen.

Line Based on Copper-Zinc-Alumina System

This product line is designed for methanol producers worldwide and is based on the well-proven copper-zinc-alumina system. The special material composition now outperforms previous generations and benchmarks in carbon efficiency, mechanical stability, and product lifespan.

Stefan Heuser, senior vice president & general manager at Clariant Catalysts, commented, "At Clariant, we are firmly committed to continuously improving our own sustainability performance, as well as that of our customers. Our continuous innovations – like CO₂-based methanol production enabled by our MegaMax catalyst – will play a key role in helping customers in China and around the world considerably reduce carbon emissions, and achieve critical climate targets."

High Conversion Ratio of CO₂

Clariant's MegaMax catalyst successfully passed a qualification test in the Methanol demonstration unit of Air Liquide's Innovation Campus Frankfurt in Germany. The tests demonstrated a high conversion ratio, with a per-pass CO₂ conversion rate of up to 30-40% using H₂/CO₂ feed. By-product formation was also low and the process achieved high selectivity. Additionally, the catalysts have shown improved stability and low deactivation, permitting an expected long product lifetime.

With the confirmed high energy efficiency and excellent performance, Clariant's MegaMax is officially qualified for future use in commercial CO₂-based methanol plants.

To help customers reliably achieve their efficiency and emission targets even under flexible conditions, Clariant provides strong engineering service support to work with process partners on solutions for green methanol production and the clean-up of unconventional syngas streams.

Source: Clariant