Meeting for the kick-off of Jinhua Furnace’s lignite-based synthetic ammonia production process package to be held

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Meeting on the process package for synthesizing ammonia from lignite using Jinhua Furnace held / Author/Source: Jinhua Furnace Date: 2020-01-08 Clicks: 44 On January 4, 2020, a meeting regarding the process package for gasification using Jinhua Furnace technology for the 300,000 tons per year synthesizing ammonia project of Hulunbuir Dongbei Fufeng Biotechnology Co., Ltd. was held at Saiding Engineering Co., Ltd. Representatives from Hulunbuir Northeast Fufeng Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Beijing Qingchuang Jinhua Technology Co., Ltd., and Saiding Engineering Co., Ltd. attended the meeting. The 300,000 tons per year synthetic ammonia project of Hulunbuir Dongbeifeng Bio-Technology Co., Ltd. utilizes the water-cooled wall waste boiler gasifier technology for water-coal slurry developed by Beijing Qingchuang Jinhua Technology Co., Ltd. (Jinhua Furnace 3.0). The gasification unit operates in a two-unit configuration; the gasification pressure is 6.5 MPaG, with a total gas flow rate of 85,000 Nm3/h (CO + H2). The project is located in Zhalantun City, Inner Mongolia, and is scheduled to go into operation in 2021. The gasification unit of this project uses lignite as the feed coal, with a slurry concentration of 50%; this concentration can be increased to 52–53% by using a concentration device. Compared to dry powder gasification, it offers the following advantages: 1. Advantages in terms of investment and equipment requirements. (1) 4.0 MPa is used for dry powder gasification; there is no backup system. Three-stage shift conversion is employed, requiring a large drying system. (2) The Jinhua furnace operates at 6.5 MPa; it has two independent units rather than a single unit, uses two-stage conversion, and does not require a drying system. (3) The total investment for Jinhua furnaces is lower than that for dry powder furnaces, and a gasification furnace operating with two units rather than just one is more stable. 2. Advantages in terms of safety. Lignite contains over 30% moisture, and its activity is very high after drying; it poses a risk of fire and explosion during the drying process ； The Jinhua furnace utilizes water-coal slurry gasification; lignite is directly slurried, eliminating any risk of fire or explosion. 3. Advantages of environmental protection. The Jinhua furnace does not require coal drying, and it emits no pollutants during normal operation. 4. Cost advantage. (1) Direct pulping of lignite does not require drying, so there are no costs associated with drying. (2) The energy consumption for transporting water-coal slurry is very low, less than 3 KWh per ton of synthetic ammonia, whereas the energy consumption for transporting dry powder gasification is 80 KWh per ton of synthetic ammonia. (3) The conversion system does not require additional steam. (4) The low-temperature methanol washing system is designed for 5.5 MPa, and the methanol circulation rate is about 30% lower than that in the dry powder system. (5) The compressor inlet pressure is 5.0 MPa, resulting in a power savings of 65 kWh per ton of synthetic ammonia produced. (6) The waste boiler of the gasifier can produce 2.1 tons of high-pressure steam per ton of synthetic ammonia produced. In summary, the cost of synthetic ammonia is reduced by about 150 yuan compared to dry powder gasification. This project is another low-concentration water-coal slurry gasification unit put into operation, following the gasification unit at Datang Hulunbuir Fertilizer Co., Ltd. The lignite gasification unit based on the Jinhua furnace used by Datang Hulunbuir Fertilizer Co., Ltd. has been operating stably since it was put into use in July 2012; it is the world’s first coal-water slurry gasification unit that uses lignite as raw material. The challenge in using lignite in wet-fed gasifiers lies in its low slurry concentration. To maintain the gasification temperature, a high amount of oxygen is required for lignite gasification; meanwhile, the raw gas produced contains a high level of water vapor and has a high enthalpy value. The Jinhua furnace makes full use of the advantage that the energy consumption in water-coal slurry gasification is concentrated and easy to recover. It recovers the heat from the raw gas through radiant waste boilers, while generating high-quality saturated steam; as a result, its energy utilization efficiency is high, and this can largely offset the impact of high oxygen consumption. Jinhua’s furnace gasification technology provides a viable path for China to utilize advanced and environmentally friendly coal gasification technologies to develop difficult-to-process lignite resources.