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Cover Picture: Impact of Daily Startup–Shutdown Conditions on the Production of Solar Methanol over a Commercial Cu–ZnO–Al 2 O 3 Catalyst (Energy Technol. 5/2016)
Author(s) -
AshKurlander Uri,
Martin Oliver,
Fontana Luca D.,
Patil Vikas R.,
Bernegger Men,
Mondelli Cecilia,
PérezRamírez Javier,
Steinfeld Aldo
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
energy technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Reports
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.91
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 2194-4296
pISSN - 2194-4288
DOI - 10.1002/ente.201600188
Subject(s) - syngas , raw material , context (archaeology) , waste management , fossil fuel , methanol , environmental science , steam reforming , materials science , catalysis , chemistry , engineering , hydrogen production , organic chemistry , paleontology , biology
From solar syngas to methanol : The sustainability of liquid fuel production like methanol would be greatly enhanced if the syngas feedstock was obtained from the renewably‐powered splitting of H 2 O and the greenhouse gas CO 2 rather than from the steam reforming of fossil fuels. In this context, a promising technology comprises the use of solar radiation. However, the limited and unsteady availability of sunlight, as illustrated on the cover, determines an intermittent syngas supply and fluctuations in its composition. As industrial methanol synthesis catalysts are typically operated under steady‐state conditions for several years, the authors investigated the impact of a daily startup‐shutdown procedure and of syngas feeds containing variable amounts of CO and CO 2 on the catalytic properties of a commercial Cu–ZnO–Al 2 O 3 catalyst. They uncovered that the activity, selectivity, and time‐on‐stream behavior of the ternary system can be retained depending on the gas atmosphere applied upon the startup–shutdown steps. Based on the structure‐performance relations derived, they put forward guidelines for the design of improved catalysts. More details can be found in the Full Paper by Javier Pérez‐Ramírez and Aldo Steinfeld et al. from ETH Zurich on page 565 in Issue 5, 2016 (DOI: 10.1002/ente.201600022).