A Review of CO2 Methanation Process: Recent Advances and Future Prospects

Catalytic CO2 conversion can not only effectively alleviate CO2 emissions but also convert it into high-value-added products, which is of great significance for achieving the mid-to-long-term strategic goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality in many countries around the world. CO2 methanation, as a key step in the Power-to-Gas (PtG) technology chain, has been considered to be one of the most promising routes for CO2 utilization. Due to the chemical inertness and thermodynamic stability of the CO2 molecule and the strong exothermic nature of this reaction, catalysts with suitable activity and sintering resistance, as well as catalytic systems with desirable heat management capability, are the key factors regarding its industrial application. Induction heating (IH), plasma, photothermal catalysis, as well as electrocatalysis approaches have been employed to boost the overall performance of catalytic CO2 methanation in recent decades. Herein, the recent state-of-the-art advances in CO2 methanation in the above aspects have been fully summarized in terms of both catalyst and catalytic system design. Future development and challenges of these technologies for CO2 methanation have also been discussed.