Power supply and carbon-intensive industries (cement, steel, limestone, petrochemical and chemical plants and waste incinerator) account for a large share of CO₂ emissions. Carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) is one of the only technology solutions that can significantly reduce emissions from these key industrial processes (all of which will remain vital building blocks of modern society) as well as in coal and gas power generation and deliver the deep emissions reductions needed across. Several technologies at different levels of maturity and performances exist for the capture of carbon dioxide, e.g. oxy-fuel combustion, chilled ammonia technology, adsorptive processes, calcium looping, etc.

From this capture step, the conversion of CO₂ to useful chemicals and fuels is a promising strategy to close the anthropogenic carbon cycle and thereby to reduce CO₂ emissions. Various processes exist, depending on the targeted chemical or fuel, they all are quite demanding either in terms of materials used, in case the catalysts are removed and changed regularly, or of energy consumed, for operating the electro-catalysis of the chemical process. Therefore, there is a huge interest in looking into decarbonised and sustainable ways to make CO₂ a utilisable material for useful fuels, and artificial photosynthesis is one of them. Obtaining a chemical with high industrial uses but currently mostly produced from fossil fuels transformation, such as methanol, is a way to cut both the carbon emissions of the abovementioned carbon-intensive industries as well as the emissions due to the usual production of the chemical.

METHASOL has the ambition to make CCUS a reality for a more sustainable future.