China’s carbon neutral efforts to get boost from new ways to produce methanol, hydrogen
- The Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics is leading projects to turn solar power into methanol and produce hydrogen from methanol
- China, the world’s largest investor in renewable energy, has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2060
The Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP), under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is leading the two initiatives, which consist of a project that turns solar power into methanol and another that produces hydrogen from methanol.
The projects can “fundamentally improve the ecological environment” in China, while helping develop renewable resources to address the nation’s energy security issues”, the DICP said in a statement on Thursday.
Methanol, mostly derived from coal and natural gas, is largely used as the key base chemical for downstream products used in manufacturing industries such as textiles, electronics and furniture. It is also an alternative clean-burning fuel that can be used on its own or mixed with petrol. Domestic demand for methanol reached 48.3 million metric tonnes last year, which represented more than half of the total global market for the chemical, according to data from IHS Markit.
03:05
China vows carbon neutrality by 2060 during one-day UN biodiversity summit
The DICP said about 140 million yuan (US$21 million) was invested to set up a 20-hectare farm that transforms solar power into methanol in Lanzhou, capital of northwestern Gansu province.
The facility currently produces about 1,000 tonnes of methanol a year through a process that includes generating electricity from solar power, using that electricity to extract pure hydrogen from water (a method known as electrolysis), and producing methanol from the chemical reaction of hydrogen with carbon dioxide.