The raw material production process at Zhongyuan Dahuahua is operating well, and the pilot production of ethylene glycol from biomass has been completed

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Since its commissioning in November 2025, the Zhongyuan Dahua Fertilizer Raw Material Route Optimization Project has been operating smoothly. After its implementation, the quality of liquid ammonia improved from 99.6% to 99.93%, meeting the premium quality standard; the number of operating days per year increased by nearly 50 days, and the cost per ton of urea was reduced by almost 200 yuan. Leveraging its flexible \"one head, multiple tails\" production system, Zhongyuan Dahuaxia can switch gas sources flexibly based on market prices, and dynamically adjust the load on facilities for methanol, urea, ethylene glycol, etc., thereby significantly improving the energy efficiency of its equipment as well as its resilience to risks. The technical upgrades of key equipment such as methanol air compressors and gasifiers further ensure that energy and materials are utilized to the fullest extent. The biomass-based ethylene glycol production facility has completed its pilot-scale testing, producing polyester-grade ethylene glycol with a purity of 99.9%; the related technologies are at the international leading level, and efforts are currently underway to transition to industrial-scale production. The technological upgrade for optimizing the raw material route at Zhongyuan Dahua involves modifying the air separation, shift, and acid gas removal units in the coal chemical plant, while keeping the scale of the gasification unit (which produces methanol/ethylene glycol) unchanged. New liquid nitrogen washing facilities are added to supply purified syngas for ammonia synthesis and CO2 gas for the urea production unit. This setup connects the methanol gasification feed gas with the natural gas-based ammonia and urea production systems, enabling seamless switching between different products; gasification can thus be used to produce both ammonia and urea. On November 25, 2025, the fertilizer raw material route optimization project at Zhongyuan Dahua Company was successfully commissioned on its first attempt, connected to the system smoothly, and produced qualified urea. The pilot-scale plant for producing ethylene glycol from straw sugar at Zhongyuan Dahuahua utilizes technology developed by the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences; it uses biomass straw sugar solutions and hydrogen as raw materials, and carries out catalytic conversion in a high-temperature, high-pressure batch reactor to obtain crude ethylene glycol. The pilot plant production capacity is 746.8 tons per year for ethylene glycol, and 194.4 tons per year for propylene glycol. In June 2022, Zhongyuan Dahua’s 1,000-ton-scale facility for the catalytic conversion of biomass into ethylene glycol successfully completed its process flow and produced industrial-grade bio-based ethylene glycol. After that, optimization is carried out. In October 2024, it passed the evaluation of scientific and technological achievements.