The problem with fossil fuels is that we are taking carbon that’s been stored in the earth for millions of years. When we burn it, the carbon hooks up with oxygen in the air, becoming CO2, the nasty greenhouse gas.
But what if we could create a liquid fuel similar to gasoline from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? Then when it was burned in, say, a car, the carbon dioxide wouldn’t add to the atmospheric concentrations. It would be a circular process. That is, as long as making it didn’t use a lot of fossil fuel energy.
That’s what a collaboration of scientists have figured out how to do, mimicking photosynthesis. Even better, the process uses catalysts that can be recovered and reused afterward.
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (UNC) have demonstrated the selective conversion of carbon dioxide (CO2) into methanol using a cascade reaction strategy. The two-part process is powered by sunlight, occurs at room temperature and at ambient pressure, and employs a recyclable organic reagent that’s similar to a catalyst found in natural photosynthesis.
Methanol (CH3OH, sometimes referred to as wood alcohol) is not the same as ethanol (C2H6O) which you often find in gasoline blends. But it is required to be used in IndyCars and MonsterTrucks so clearly it can be used in appropriately configured vehicle engines. It’s also an important industrial feedstock.
Methanol (CH3OH) is a particularly attractive target because it is a liquid that can be easily transported and stored. In addition to its usefulness as a fuel, methanol serves as a key feedstock in the chemical industry for making more complex molecules. Also, because methanol contains just one carbon atom, like CO2, it circumvents the need for making carbon-carbon bonds, which require energy-intensive processes.
https://phys.org/news/2024-03-recyclable-reagent-sunlight-carbon-monoxide.html
Chemical Safety Facts website explains these common uses of methanol.
Darcy Hitchcock 
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