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Significant achievements in the innovative development of the nitrogen fertilizer and methanol industries Author/Source: Sinochem New Network Date: 2020-08-07 Clicks: 4 The industrial structure has been further optimized, with continuous efforts made to reduce energy consumption and emissions. Since the 13th Five-Year Plan period, China’s nitrogen fertilizer and methanol industries have always adhered to supply-side reform as their guiding principle, placed great emphasis on and pursued a strategy for high-quality development within these industries, and embraced an innovation-driven approach to growth, achieving notable results as a result. This is information obtained by the reporter from the 2020 National Nitrogen Fertilizer and Methanol Technology Conference held in Weifang, Shandong on August 6. Gu Zongqin, president of the China Nitrogen Fertilizer Industry Association, noted that 2019 marked the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and it was also a year in which significant progress was made in technology within the nitrogen fertilizer and methanol industries. The nitrogen fertilizer and methanol industries consistently follow the guidelines set by **industry development policies, adhering to the principle that technological innovation drives progress. They regard technological innovation as the underlying force that promotes high-quality development in these industries. Over the past year, the nitrogen fertilizer and methanol industries have achieved significant progress in production and technological innovation, which is evident in four main areas. The industrial structure has been further optimized. Gu Zongqin explained that since the 13th Five-Year Plan period, new coal gasification technologies have gained favor among nitrogen fertilizer manufacturers due to their efficiency and environmental benefits; the proportion of high-quality production capacity has been increasing year by year, resulting in an industrial structure that is primarily based on bituminous coal and lignite, with other raw materials such as anthracite and natural gas playing a supplementary role. According to statistics from the China Nitrogen Fertilizer Industry Association, as of the end of 2019, the production capacity for ammonia synthesis through intermittent gasification using anthracite as raw material was 22.38 million tons, accounting for 33.7% of the total production capacity. The production capacity for ammonia synthesis through new types of gasification using bituminous coal and lignite was 27.18 million tons, accounting for 41.0% of the total capacity – thus exceeding for the first time the production capacity associated with intermittent gasification using non-anthracite coal. As environmental protection requirements continue to tighten, the role of new coal gasification technologies will further increase. Similar to the nitrogen fertilizer industry, China’s methanol production capacity is characterized by an industrial structure dominated by new-type gasification. In 2019, China’s methanol production capacity was 89.92 million tons, representing a 7.2% increase on a year-on-year basis. Of this amount, the methanol produced from coal accounted for 67.79 million tons, accounting for 75.4% of the total production capacity, an increase of 9.4 percentage points compared to the previous year. The number of enterprises using new coal gasification technologies in plants that rely on coal as raw material has increased to 78, with a production capacity of 55.68 million tons per year, accounting for 61.9% of the total capacity. Among these, the water-coal slurry gasification technology holds a dominant position; it accounts for 38.93 million tons of methanol production, which represents 43.3% of the total capacity. The competitiveness of high-quality production capacity in the nitrogen fertilizer and methanol industries is increasingly evident, and the industrial structure is gradually becoming more rational. Significant improvements have been achieved in the enlargement and consolidation of production facilities. According to statistics from the China Nitrogen Fertilizer Industry Association, as of the end of 2019, there were 217 synthetic ammonia production enterprises in China. The capacity of these enterprises that exceeded 500,000 tons per year totaled 27.6 million tons, accounting for 41.6% of the total capacity – an increase of 1.3 percentage points compared to the previous year. The capacity of enterprises with a production capacity between 300,000 and 500,000 tons per year was 22.85 million tons, representing an increase of 0.6 percentage points. Meanwhile, the capacity of enterprises with a production capacity below 300,000 tons per year was 15.92 million tons, showing a decrease of 2.0 percentage points. Similar to the nitrogen fertilizer industry, large-scale facilities play a significant role in the methanol industry: those with a production capacity of 600,000 tons or more account for 51.56 million tons, representing 57.3% of the total production capacity, an increase of 20.3% compared to the previous year, while facilities with a production capacity of less than 300,000 tons are gradually phasing out. As the scale of facilities in the nitrogen fertilizer and methanol industries continues to grow, so does the degree of industry concentration. New facilities have been put into operation in regions such as Shanxi, Shandong, Anhui, and Inner Mongolia, resulting in an increase in high-quality production capacity; these facilities now account for half of the total production in China’s nitrogen fertilizer and methanol industries. Significant progress has been made in the research, development, and application of domestic coal gasification and ammonia synthesis technologies. Traditional coal gasification technologies have their own limitations in terms of scale, efficiency, environmental friendliness, and selectivity regarding different types of coal. However, new coal gasification technologies, especially those that are domestically developed, have seen considerable progress over the past two decades, leading to a flourishing development in the industries related to nitrogen fertilizers and methanol. The multi-nozzle opposed water-coal slurry gasifier capable of processing 4,000 tons of coal per day per furnace was successfully commissioned in a single operation, marking a milestone in the advancement of coal gasification technology from a capacity of 3,000 tons to 4,000 tons per day. The gasifier for the “Development and Demonstration of Large-Scale Dry Coal Powder Fluidized Bed Gasification Technology” project, which can handle 3,500 tons of coal per day at a pressure of 6.5 MPa, has also been installed; it will become the world’s largest coal gasifier with the highest gasification pressure. This breakthrough will be recorded in the history of coal gasification development in China, and it represents an important achievement in the scaling up and localization of new coal gasification technologies in the country. China’s first thousand-ton-class pressurized fluidized bed coal gasification unit (with an effective gas production capacity of 45,000 Nm3/h per furnace) and its first atmospheric-pressure fluidized bed coal gasification unit (with an effective gas production capacity of 60,000 Nm3/h per furnace) have been successfully put into operation in the field of ammonia synthesis, providing solutions for the transformation and upgrading of small and medium-sized nitrogen fertilizer manufacturers. In the field of efficient ammonia synthesis, following the successful operation of the industrial demonstration plant for ammonia synthesis using iron-ruthenium cascade catalysis with a capacity of 10,000 tons per year, the first successful start-up of an ammonia synthesis plant with a capacity of 200,000 tons per year that utilizes \"iron-ruthenium relay catalysis\" under low temperature and pressure conditions has been achieved. This marks China’s success in developing the world’s first ammonia synthesis plant based on coal as a raw material using this iron-ruthenium relay catalysis technique. Based on the operational results, this device boasts advantages such as low synthesis pressure (12.6 MPa), a high ammonia yield (14.5%), and low overall energy consumption (1.08 tons of standard coal, a reduction of about 0.22 tons of standard coal), thereby achieving the desired goals of safety and energy efficiency. A series of large-scale, efficient, and clean coal gasification and synthesis technologies with independent intellectual property rights play a significant strategic role; they will further help the nitrogen fertilizer and methanol industries advance to a new stage of high-quality development. Efforts to save energy and reduce emissions continue to advance. Gu Zongqin noted that since the 13th Five-Year Plan period, energy conservation and emission reduction have been among the key priorities in the nitrogen fertilizer industry, with various energy consumption and environmental protection indicators being met satisfactorily. However, as efforts to save energy and reduce emissions intensify, the potential for improvement in these key indicators is gradually decreasing. According to statistics from the China Nitrogen Fertilizer Industry Association, in 2019 the average comprehensive energy consumption for synthetic ammonia production was 1,263.5 kilograms of standard coal per ton of ammonia, roughly the same as in 2018. Due to a slight increase in the production of synthetic ammonia and urea, the total coal consumption increased compared to 2018. Throughout the year, the coal consumed for synthetic ammonia and urea (converted to standard coal) accounted for about 1.6% of the country’s total energy consumption, an increase of approximately 0.1 percentage point on a year-on-year basis. In 2019, the advanced enterprises in terms of energy conservation and emission reduction had an ammonia wastewater discharge volume of 3.1 m3 per ton of ammonia produced, which was roughly the same as last year; meanwhile, the average emission concentrations of chemical oxygen demand and ammonia nitrogen both decreased by more than 20% compared to the previous year. In terms of exhaust emissions, the emission concentrations of particulates, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides from thermal boilers decreased by 15%, 4%, and 14% respectively on a year-on-year basis. In addition, leading companies in this industry have achieved many innovative results in terms of emission reduction and resource utilization. For example, Zhengyuan Hydrogen Energy uses its own patented technology to introduce condensate into the wastewater distillation system, thereby evaporating the NH3 component; this process allows for the recovery of approximately 28 m3 of ammonia per day (at a concentration of around 5%), which is then used as a raw material for desulfurization and denitrification in boiler flue gas. China Coal Ordos Company has innovatively implemented a combined treatment method for concentrated brine from coal chemical processes and mine water for the first time, achieving a salt recovery rate of 95% in the wastewater. This approach has enabled zero discharge of coal chemical wastewater, while also producing high-quality industrial products such as sodium sulfate and sodium chloride, thus providing a model for the sustainable development of coal chemical enterprises. These two technologies won the first prize of the “2019 China Nitrogen Fertilizer Industry Association Science and Technology Award” for their innovation and advancement in the treatment of coal chemical wastewater. The digitalization level of enterprises is improving steadily. Gu Zongqin emphasized that in recent years, significant efforts have been made to develop the industrial Internet, encouraging enterprises to accelerate their digital transformation process. The nitrogen fertilizer and methanol industries have actively explored and implemented such initiatives, achieving a number of substantial results. Since 2018, nearly 20 enterprises such as Shaanxi Coal Group, Zhongyuan Dahuahua, and Chongqing Jianfeng have successively passed the assessment for the integrated management system of industrialization and informatization. In November 2019, Henan Xinlianxin and Shanghai Huayi were selected as \"Pilot and Demonstration Projects for the Integration of Manufacturing and the Internet in 2019\" by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. In 2019, a consortium formed by Jinmei Zhongneng Company, together with the Fertilizer Association, Jincheng Group and six other organizations, successfully won the bid for the project of a secondary node for industrial internet identifier resolution (an application service platform for the petrochemical industry) as part of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s initiative. It was also the only fertilizer-related project under this initiative for industrial internet innovation and development. A series of achievements indicate that China’s nitrogen fertilizer and methanol industries have taken solid steps forward in the deep integration of next-generation information technology with the real economy. In April this year, 5G coverage was achieved throughout the boiler and air separation areas of Hubei Sanning Company’s ethylene glycol production facility. With the commissioning of this ethylene glycol project, the 5G network will be gradually put into full use, making it the first 5G-enabled smart factory in Hubei Province as well as the first nitrogen fertilizer manufacturer to apply 5G technology in its operations. The successful operation of Hubei Sanning’s “5G + industrial internet” project will provide valuable experience for the digital transformation of this industry. In the future, the nitrogen fertilizer and methanol industries must continue to keep up with the trends of the times, actively explore new approaches for integrated development with the industrial Internet, improve their digital management capabilities, and thereby drive industrial transformation and upgrading as well as cost reduction, quality improvement, and efficiency enhancement, thus contributing new momentum to the high-quality development of these industries.