RV Digital · 02 · The conversion

RV Pathway Explorer.

An interactive read of the process layer for converting captured CO₂ and green hydrogen into chemicals and fuels: e-methanol, e-SAF, green ammonia, and DME. Reaction chemistry, indicative operating windows, and references for each pathway.

Instrument 02 of the digital layer. It models the chemistry of every route from captured CO₂ and green hydrogen to finished product.

What it shows

Process layer: source → conversion → product. Reactions, indicative operating windows, energy intensity, and paper citations for each step.

What it is for

Pathway screening for industrial hosts, technology providers, project developers, investors, and public-sector programmes evaluating Saudi-context CO₂-to-fuels routes.

What it does not show

No capex, opex, revenue, credit pricing, IRR, or NPV. Project economics are scoped through a separate engagement with Renewable Vision.

Pathway explorer

Carbon to chemicals and fuels, pathway by pathway.

An interactive read of the process layer — captured CO₂ plus green hydrogen, routed through the chemistry, parameters, and references that govern each pathway. The economics layer is a separate, internal tool.

Pathways
e-Methanol

CO₂ + H₂ → e-Methanol

Captured CO₂ reacts with green hydrogen over a Cu/ZnO/Al₂O₃ catalyst to produce methanol. The product is drop-in compatible with existing methanol value chains for chemicals, shipping (FuelEU Maritime), and fuel blending.

Energy intensity
10–12kWh / kg product
CO₂ utilisation
1.375kg CO₂ / kg product
Steps
4process units
Step description

Direct Air Capture

Solid-sorbent or liquid-solvent capture of atmospheric CO₂. Energy intensity dominates DAC economics; pairing with low-cost solar is the structural Saudi advantage.

Operating window

Parameters

Capture energy
Thermal + electric, solid-sorbent reference.
1500–2500kWh / tCO₂
E_DAC
CO₂ purity (post-capture)
>99% v/v
Compression to synthesis
50–100bar
Live calculation · interactive

Play with the operating point.

Sliders move within paper-cited bounds. Mass balance uses IUPAC 2021 stoichiometry. PEM curve runs Butler–Volmer + ohmic + concentration overpotentials in your browser.

Process layer · no economics
Product output
200000t / year
20kPlant nameplate1M
Capture energy
2000kWh / tCO₂
1500Solid-sorbent DAC2500
PEM current density
1.50A / cm²
0.5→ 53.9 kWh per kg H₂3.0
PEM stack temperature
80°C
60 °CHigher T improves kinetics, costs membrane life90 °C
Single-pass conversion
20%
15%Recycle ratio ≈ 5.00× fresh feed30%
Synthesis energy
350kWh / t product
200500
Mass balance · live
H₂ required
37.8kt / year
CO₂ required
274.7kt / year
N₂ required
t / year
H₂O by-product
112.4kt / year
Energy balance · live
Capture549.4
PEM2035.1
Synthesis70.0
Per-kg product
13.3kWh / kg
PEM polarization curve · 80 °C
2.42.21.91.71.40.00.81.52.33.01.96 VCURRENT DENSITY · A/cm²Vcell
Cell voltage = Erev + ηact + ηohm + ηconc. Marker shows your operating point.
Reaction thermodynamics

ΔHrxn at standard conditions.

Literature value
ΔHrxn at 298 K, 1 bar
-49.5kJ / mol
Exothermic — heat released to surroundings.
About this value
Published reaction enthalpy at standard conditions. Live thermodynamic lookups via CoolProp's Helmholtz-energy equations of state come online after the next Vercel deploy — at that point this panel updates to show ΔHrxn(T) at the user's selected temperature with per-species breakdown.
Market anchor

FuelEU Maritime regulatory floor; Asian + European petrochemical offtake; immediate drop-in.

Backed by
  • Energy and exergy analysis of methanol synthesis via CO₂ hydrogenation
    Pérez-Fortes, Schöneberger, Boulamanti, Tzimas · 2016
    Appl. Energy 161, 718–732
Uncertainty + sensitivity

Which knobs actually move the answer.

Deterministic tornado: each parameter perturbed to its low/high bound, others held at mid. Monte Carlo: independent triangular sampling of every input, recomputing the metric for every scenario. Both run in your browser on the same mass + energy balance engine that powers the rest of the simulator.

Pathway
Output metric
Monte Carlo samples
Tornado · one-at-a-time

Parameter influence ranking.

Baseline
13.48kWh / kg product
PEM energy±1.13Capture energy±0.69Synthesis energy±0.15Conversion±0.00
capture
pem
synthesis
process
Monte Carlo · 2,000 samples

Output distribution.

P50 (median)
13.60
12.0912.9013.7214.5315.34
P10: 12.93P50: 13.60P90: 14.33
P10
12.93
Mean
13.62
P90
14.33
P05
12.75
Stddev
0.54
P95
14.55
Method

Tornado holds all parameters at their mid value except one, which sweeps low → high. Rows sorted by absolute swing. Monte Carlo draws each parameter independently from a triangular distribution (low, mid, high); samples are passed through the same mass + energy balance used elsewhere in the explorer, then quantiles are read from the empirical sorted set. No correlation is modelled between parameters — a stronger v3 would add a correlation matrix from project portfolio data. P90 here means "90% of scenarios give a value at or below this," consistent with the techno-economic convention.

Saudi industrial CO₂ map

Where the infrastructure sits.

Twelve curated industrial CO₂ sources plotted at their real coordinates on an OpenStreetMap base layer. Marker size scales with annual CO₂ tonnage; color encodes sector. Click any marker for detail.

Loading map …
Marker scale
1 Mt CO₂/y
3 Mt CO₂/y
6 Mt CO₂/y
Click a marker on the map to inspect a host.
Saudi industrial hosts · CO₂ sources

Where the carbon actually lives.

A curated set of major Saudi industrial CO₂ sources with indicative tonnages from public disclosures and sector benchmarks. Each host is mapped to the pathways that are technically compatible with its CO₂ stream quality. Click any host to see the engineering fit.

Facilities catalogued
14
Aggregate CO₂ (mid-range)
52Mt / yr
Filter-set total
51.9Mt / yr
Currently shown
14hosts
Filter
Sector
Corridor
Compatible pathway
Select a host on the left to see its CO₂ stream characteristics and pathway compatibility analysis.
Provenance and methodology

All facility names are from public operator disclosures. Indicative CO₂ tonnages are mid-points of public ranges from sector benchmarks (refining 4–8 Mt CO₂/y per plant; cement ~30% process CO₂ in flue stream; ammonia ~1.5–2 t CO₂ per t NH₃) and Climate-TRACE-style facility-level data sets. Numbers are ranges, not point measurements. Pathway compatibility is determined by CO₂ stream quality (high-purity / concentrated / dilute flue) and integration considerations (existing H₂ availability, downstream chemistry overlap). Per-host scoping requires project-specific data — contact Renewable Vision for confidential engagement.

Portfolio optimiser · multi-pathway

Constrained resources, optimal mix.

Given a CO₂ supply, a green H₂ supply, and per-product demand caps, the optimiser solves an LP over the four pathways to find the allocation that maximises your chosen objective. Mass balance uses IUPAC 2021 stoichiometry; the LP runs in your browser via dense-vertex enumeration.

Resource constraints
CO₂ supply
2.0Mt / year
0.1 Mt10 Mt
Green H₂ supply
300kt / year
10 kt2,000 kt
Per-product demand caps
e-Methanol
600kt / year
02,000 kt
e-SAF
300kt / year
02,000 kt
Green Ammonia
800kt / year
02,000 kt
Dimethyl Ether
400kt / year
02,000 kt
Objective
Optimal allocation
LP solved
Max CO₂ abated
CO₂ utilised
2.00 Mt
100% of supply
H₂ utilised
300.0 k
100% of supply
Total product
1.27 M
Blended MWh / tCO₂
7.13
Capacity allocation
e-Methanol
600.0 kt / y
100% of demand cap824 kt CO₂ · 113.3 k H₂
e-SAF
132.8 kt / y
44% of demand cap412 kt CO₂ · 58.1 k H₂
Green Ammonia
132.8 kt / y
17% of demand cap CO₂ · 23.6 k H₂
Dimethyl Ether
400.0 kt / y
100% of demand cap764 kt CO₂ · 105.0 k H₂
CO₂ supply utilised
100%
H₂ supply utilised
100%
Methodology

LP over 4 pathways with 2 resource constraints (CO₂, H₂) and 4 demand caps. Solver enumerates vertices of the feasible polytope by activating every 4-subset of 14-constraint system, solving the resulting linear system, and selecting the best feasible vertex. Per-pathway coefficients are IUPAC 2021 derived. Energy intensities use the published operating-window centres; the interactive controls above let you walk the operating point off-centre. Economics are computed only inside the internal RV-CMP engine and are intentionally not exposed here.

Take a pathway from screening to project.

The Pathway Explorer is a public read of the process layer. For project-specific screening, methodology selection, host fit, and structured project support, contact the Renewable Vision team.

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