Mitsui Chemicals to Study Industrial Feasibility of Chemical CO2 Immobilization Technology

Mitsui Chemicals Inc. (MCI), a leading Japanese chemicals company, announced on August 25, 2008, that the company will build a pilot facility to develop the processes of carbon dioxide (CO2) separation and capture, and methanol synthesis, into a practical technology. This will be the first step for realizing the commercial application of chemical CO2 immobilization technology.

Chemical CO2 immobilization is the technology to synthesize methanol from
CO2 emitted by factories, and hydrogen obtained from water photolysis, thereby producing chemicals, such as olefins and aromatics. When it succeeds in utilizing the technology for commercial use, MCI will not only be able to secure raw materials used for chemical products, as alternatives to crude oil, but also able to achieve a significant reduction in CO2, a major cause of global warming.

The pilot facility, with a capacity of producing about 100 tons of methanol per year, will be built in the company's factory in Osaka, western Japan. The company started construction in October 2008, and plans to complete it in February 2009, aiming to establish the practical technology by March 2010. The catalysts used for methanol synthesis are ultra high-activity ones, developed through the Chemical CO2 Immobilization Project -- commissioned by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization's (NEDO) -- which was jointly researched by MCI and Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE) from 1990 to 1999. To commercialize the technology, the improvement of such catalysts is in progress.

- Mitsui Chemicals to Establish a Pilot Facility to Study a Methanol Synthesis Process from CO2
http://www.mitsuichem.com/release/2008/080825e.htm

Posted: 2009/01/31 06:00:15 AM