Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed a new method to convert captured CO 2 into methane, the primary component of natural gas. By using a water-lean post-combustion capture solvent, (N-(2-ethoxyethyl)-3-morpholinopropan-1-amine) (2-EEMPA), they achieved a greater than 90% conversion of captured CO 2 to hydrocarbons—mostly methane—in the presence of a heterogenous Ru catalyst under relatively mild reaction conditions (170 °C and <15 bar H 2 pressure). Technoeconomic analyses (TEA) showed that the proposed integrated process can potentially improve the thermal efficiency by 5% and reduce the total capital investment and minimum synthetic natural gas (SNG) selling price by 32% and 12% respectively compared to conventional Sabatier process, highlighting the energetic and economic benefits of integrated capture and conversion. A paper on the work is published in ChemSusChem . Methane derived from CO 2 and renewable H 2 sources is an attractive fuel, and it […]