Renewable methanol synthesized from carbon dioxide capture and conversion using water and renewable energies such as solar, wind, geothermal, atomic, etc., is a simple solution in the long run to a complex climate change carbon conundrum. Liquid methanol is a versatile high octane, clean burning automotive fuel (to replace gasoline and diesel), a fuel for direct oxidation methanol fuel cell, chemical feedstock to make ethylene, propylene and myriad of other chemicals and a convenient hydrogen storage medium that can replace fossil fuels in almost all applications without inflicting major changes to the existing infrastructure. Our recent studies on integrated carbon dioxide capture from point sources including air and its reductive conversion to methanol and methane (principal component of natural gas) with hydrogen will be discussed using homogeneous as well as heterogeneous catalysts under moderate reaction conditions.
