Recent direction dealing with climate change has changed more to focus on carbon utilization rather than the direct carbon capture and storage. Conceptually converting CO2 to sellable chemicals or fuels should be more benign to environment by substituting the fossil raw materials like oil, natural gas, or coal. Instead of converting CO2 fully to valuable chemicals or fuels, it is much easier to employ a portion of CO2 with existing raw materials in many natural gas conversion processes. Dimethyl ether (DME) and gas-to-liquids (GTL) are most prominent processes that can be modified to accommodate CO2 as a reacting raw material. There are already several successful technology developments in using CO2-rich natural gas for DME and liquid fuels, although they are not yet fully reached the commercialized level. This chapter highlights recent developments in utilizing CO2-containing natural gas and landfill gas to yield valuable chemicals and fuels like diesel or DME.
Part of the book: Recent Advances in Carbon Capture and Storage