Techno-economic assessment of catalytic gasification of biomass powders for methanol production.

•Alkali impregnation of biomass increases cold gas efficiency in entrained flow gasification.•Methanol yield increased from 62% to 65–66% by impregnation.•Impregnation has a small influence on the methanol production costs.•If exempted from tax, biomethanol produced via entrained flow gasification could be competitive to taxed gasoline.