Production of renewable alcohols from air, water, and sunlight present an avenue to utilize captured carbon dioxide for the production of basic chemicals and store renewable energy in the chemical bonds of liquid fuels. Of the technologies that utilize CO₂ directly, CO₂ electrolysis, as well as CO₂ hydrogenation coupled with H₂O electrolysis, have the benefit of requiring only CO₂, H₂O, and renewable electricity as inputs with O₂ as a sole byproduct. Among alcohols, renewable methanol has seen the most development and analysis in the chemical industry because it is currently a syngas-derived product that could be adapted for direct CO₂ utilization. In this perspective, we compare renewably powered CO₂ electrolysis and CO₂ hydrogenation with the incumbent methanol production method from syngas from a cost and CO₂ life cycle perspective by analyzing recent literature to identify the research goals that enable further scale-up. Survey of the industry shows that CO₂ hydrogenation is among the closest CO₂ utilization technologies to large-scale deployment. We further discuss these CO₂ hydrogenation systems and the catalysts that drive them, with recommendations to drive further development and scale-up.

由空气，水和日光生产可再生酒精提供了一种利用捕获的二氧化碳生产碱性化学品并将可再生能源存储在液体燃料化学键中的途径。在直接利用CO ₂的技术中，CO ₂电解以及CO ₂加氢和H ₂ O电解相结合的优点是仅需以CO ₂，H ₂ O和可再生电力作为输入，而O ₂仅作为输入副产品。在醇类中，可再生甲醇在化学工业中得到了最广泛的开发和分析，因为它目前是合成气衍生的产品，可以直接用于CO _2气中。利用率。从这个角度出发，我们通过分析最近的文献来确定可进一步扩大规模的研究目标，从成本和CO ₂生命周期的角度比较了可再生动力的CO ₂电解和CO ₂加氢与合成气中现有甲醇生产方法的比较。对该行业的调查表明，CO ₂加氢是最接近大规模部署的最接近的CO ₂利用技术。我们进一步讨论了这些CO ₂加氢系统和驱动它们的催化剂，并提出了进一步发展和扩大规模的建议。