Prospects for a green methanol thermo-catalytic process from CO2 by using MOFs based materials: A mini-review

The synthesis of green methanol from CO2 and renewable H2 is a key process for energy and chemistry transition, for which MOFs (metal-organic framework) type catalysts represent a novel class of thermo catalysts to address the quest of novel catalysts for low-temperature delocalized applications. This critical concise review analyses the state-of-the-art of MOFs catalysts for this reaction after introducing aspects related to their preparation, key features, and advantages as catalytic materials. The SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis of their behavior from chemical reaction engineering and application perspectives remarks the need of turn the approach on their developments, besides addressing some current weaknesses such as stability in the reaction conditions and scalability of the synthesis procedure. New opportunities are evidenced in moving from CO2 to methanol to CO2 direct conversion to C2+ products, from olefins/aromatics to higher alcohols, which require a novel design of these catalytic materials.