Methanol

Methanol (methyl alcohol), also known as wood alcohol or wood spirit, is a light, colorless, flammable liquid that is one of the largest volume-commodity materials produced in the world today.

Methanol plays a critical role in today's alternative fuel industry; in the production of biodiesel, each gallon of biodiesel produced contains approximately 10-12% methanol. Biodiesel is one of the most thoroughly tested and widely utilized alternative fuels out in the market today. The industry has seen unprecedented growth. In 2007, over 450 million gallons of B100 were sold in the U.S. alone, almost a six-fold increase from the 75 million gallons sold in 2005.

It is also one of the basic building blocks of the chemical industry, and widely utilized as a base for the production of resins utilized in plastics, textile, paint, and auto industries. Higher in octane than gasoline, it is has been used as a fuel additive in reformulated gasoline (MTBE), rocket propellant and as a fuel blend in the car racing industry for decades.

Currently, most of the world's methanol is produced from natural gas via catalytic synthesis, a method very similar to Syntec's 'B2A' Process. Natural gas is reformed with steam to produce syngas, which is catalytically reacted to produce methanol. While conversion costs for this technology are low, the price of methanol in recent years has fluctuated wildly, ranging from $0.90 - $2.50.

The key driver in methanol is the price of natural gas which, like oil, is a non-renewable and permanently declining resource. New technology, like Syntec's, can now produce 'green methanol', or biomethanol, from renewable resources such as biomass, industrial wastes, and even landfill gas. Biomethanol produced from this method also results in significantly lower GHG emissions than natural gas or coal derived methanol.