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Methane promising route for storage of renewable energy from sun and wind
https://www.uu.nl/en/news/methane-promising-route-for-storage-of-renewable-energy-from-sun-and-wind11 March 2019
Publication in Nature Catalysis
Methane promising route for storage of renewable energy from sun and wind
Storing renewable electricity in molecules can solve two problems at once: first of all environmentally harmful CO₂ can be used as a feedstock, and secondly it can enhance our capacity to store renewable electricity in chemical bonds for long periods of time. The latter is necessary because traditional batteries do not yet have the capacity to ensure enough flexibility, stability and security to store wind and solar energy on a large scale for extended time periods. Utrecht University researchers are publishing a Perspective article on the status quo of ‘Power to Methane’ today in Nature Catalysis.
First author Charlotte Vogt comments: “Aside from understanding fundamental physical and chemical concepts behind catalytic reactions, I’m especially interested to know if and how the research I am doing can impact society. That’s why I wanted to start this societally relevant, but still fundamental research project.”
Another process that can be used to store electricity in molecules is the conversion of water to hydrogen via electrolysis. This process is cheaper than methanation, because it involves fewer reaction steps. The researchers have now calculated that despite this higher cost of the process, it can still be beneficial to make methane out of CO₂ because storage of methane is ten times cheaper than hydrogen. This way, we can store electricity for seasons in a potentially cheaper manner than by using only hydrogen.
“The important part of this idea is that we do not send the methane to houses, where it gets re-emitted as CO₂, but rather to recycle this carbon again and again in a closed-loop process,” says Vogt. “This process of using methane as a chemical battery has an overall efficiency of roughly 34%, so we need a lot of CO₂ to ensure that our ‘battery’ gets big enough.” Another option is to make methane out of sustainably resourced biomass or municipal waste. In this case, the methane could be sent to houses through our natural gas network. However, without a carbon tax this synthetic natural gas (SNG) will be more expensive than fossil methane, so it is unlikely that this process will come to fruition in the near future.
…
https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41929-019-0244-4Publication in Nature Catalysis
Methane promising route for storage of renewable energy from sun and wind
Storing renewable electricity in molecules can solve two problems at once: first of all environmentally harmful CO₂ can be used as a feedstock, and secondly it can enhance our capacity to store renewable electricity in chemical bonds for long periods of time. The latter is necessary because traditional batteries do not yet have the capacity to ensure enough flexibility, stability and security to store wind and solar energy on a large scale for extended time periods. Utrecht University researchers are publishing a Perspective article on the status quo of ‘Power to Methane’ today in Nature Catalysis.
First author Charlotte Vogt comments: “Aside from understanding fundamental physical and chemical concepts behind catalytic reactions, I’m especially interested to know if and how the research I am doing can impact society. That’s why I wanted to start this societally relevant, but still fundamental research project.”
Another process that can be used to store electricity in molecules is the conversion of water to hydrogen via electrolysis. This process is cheaper than methanation, because it involves fewer reaction steps. The researchers have now calculated that despite this higher cost of the process, it can still be beneficial to make methane out of CO₂ because storage of methane is ten times cheaper than hydrogen. This way, we can store electricity for seasons in a potentially cheaper manner than by using only hydrogen.
“The important part of this idea is that we do not send the methane to houses, where it gets re-emitted as CO₂, but rather to recycle this carbon again and again in a closed-loop process,” says Vogt. “This process of using methane as a chemical battery has an overall efficiency of roughly 34%, so we need a lot of CO₂ to ensure that our ‘battery’ gets big enough.” Another option is to make methane out of sustainably resourced biomass or municipal waste. In this case, the methane could be sent to houses through our natural gas network. However, without a carbon tax this synthetic natural gas (SNG) will be more expensive than fossil methane, so it is unlikely that this process will come to fruition in the near future.
…