CHE.05 – Manure to Methanol

The Biomethanol Production Project dubbed ‘Manure to Methanol’ aims to establish a farm-based biomethanol production plant in Illinois, leveraging advanced fermentation and distillation processes to convert dairy cow manure into methanol fuel. The process, slowly becoming an industry standard, cultivates biogas from the manure utilizing anaerobic digestion, to then synthesize the gas into methane footprints that are further synthesized into methanol, with a purity of 97%. Within the report is a detailed economic analysis, including a sensitivity chart determining our NPV as a major factor towards our revenues. Unfortunately, the economic analysis presents that this process is economically unsustainable, with an NPV value of -$6.2 MM at 20 years, calling for a pause in construction and allowing for further research and design. This initiative aligns with current global sustainability and environmental production guidelines, with a focus on recovering a fuel product from a waste source, minimizing the need to utilize and capture fossil fuels. All in all, this project aims to provide a clean fuel source to those in an agricultural sector in Illinois, as well as influence similar projects utilizing waste as a feedstock for fuels. Once the processes establish more research and development, and the costs decrease for the anaerobic digestion units, then this project would be more viable, and would proceed.