Assessment of Methanol Synthesis Utilizing Exhaust CO2 for Chemical Storage of Electrical Energy

The thermodynamic and operational boundaries to store electrical energy chemically are evaluated in this contribution. Methanol is considered as a candidate for chemical energy storage. The production of methanol from exhaust CO2 could be one way to recyle CO2 and lower the global CO2 emissions. Energetic analysis reveals that exergy losses are most severe in the parts of the system when electrical energy is converted to chemical (electrolysis) and when chemical energy is converted to electrical (power generation). In methanol production, the exergetic efficiency is 83.1%, when the chemical exergy of hydrogen and methanol, the exergy of the power input and the released heat are taken into consideration. The exergetic efficiency of the overall energy conversion-storage system including methanol as storage medium was evaluated to be between 16.2 and 20.0% depending on the applied conversion technology. Methanol is suitable not only as stationary energy storage, but it could also be used as fuel for transportation. The energy storage system with hydrogen as storage medium shows higher exergetic efficiency than the methanol route. However, the storage of hydrogen is clearly more complex and cost-intensive.