【Ten Years of Rapid Development in Chemical Equipment】3046–2026: China’s first commercial demonstration of international carbon dioxide and methane dry reforming technology

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Let’s give praise and encouragement to the achievements made in China’s chemical engineering technology and equipment; your participation in discussions is the greatest encouragement. **********************【Ten Years of Great Development in Chemical Engineering Equipment】A continuously updated summary post is available – feel free to join the discussions: https://bbs.hcbbs.com/thread-3576046-1-1.html ***************** Reporters learned from Gaolu Air Chemical Products (Shanghai) Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as Gaolu Air) that the “methane-carbon dioxide dry reforming process package” developed jointly by this company and Donghua Engineering Technology Co., Ltd., which is part of Sinopec, has been successfully put into operation at a demonstration plant built in Houston, USA. This is the world’s first commercial demonstration of carbon dioxide and methane dry reforming technology in our country. Zhang Jun, the chief engineer at Gaolu Air, told reporters that this facility uses natural gas as a raw material and takes carbon dioxide from the factory’s existing waste gases to produce syngas with a flexibly adjustable hydrogen-to-carbon ratio, through air dry reforming technology. The unit was ignited on February 28, reached nearly 100% load on March 3 and operated stably, producing approximately 30,000 cubic meters per hour of crude syngas. Feng Yufeng, the technical director of Donghua Company, explained that the technical team possesses extensive engineering experience in the fields of natural gas chemical processing and coke oven gas chemical processing. It was responsible for the development of the core reaction processes for dry reforming, as well as the design of key elements such as control logic. The team also took charge of preparing the process packages and some of the construction drawings, ensuring that these packages are both advanced, feasible, and cost-effective. Sun Yuhan, the technology leader, chief scientist at Gaolu Air, and director of the Shanxi Research Institute at Huairou Laboratory, said in an interview with reporters that the team had previously collaborated with Shanghai Huayi to carry out the world’s first commercial demonstration of this technology in a chemical industrial park in Shanghai. This project in Houston, USA, marks the first time that China’s dry reforming technology has entered the international market, achieving a successful commissioning. Both carbon dioxide and methane are typical greenhouse gases as well as important carbon-containing resources. The process of using these two as carbon sources to produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen in the form of syngas is known as dry reforming. Sun Yuhan said that they overcame two key barriers in technology research and development: scientific theory and engineering technology. In the field of basic science, they resolved the problem of high-temperature agglomeration in nickel-based catalysts, and developed catalysts that meet the requirements of thermal stability, hydrothermal stability, and resistance to carbon deposition ； In terms of engineering design, by optimizing the coordinated distribution of the flow field, temperature field, and concentration field within the reactor, a deep integration between the inherent properties of the catalyst and the structure of the reactor is achieved ； Establish an integrated connection system that ensures functional complementarity, parameter alignment, and temporal coordination between the main reaction unit and the auxiliary systems, thereby guaranteeing the stable and efficient operation of the entire process. The device achieves green operation while absorbing carbon dioxide, with no pollutants emitted throughout the process. In Sun Yuhan’s view, the successful implementation of this project is a successful example of industry-academia collaboration. “Many years ago, while working in Shanxi, I noticed that the local coke oven gas was rich in methane and carbon dioxide, so I began to study the field of dry reforming. At that time, our country’s ‘dual carbon’ strategy had not yet been proposed. ”He said, “We also couldn’t imagine that an academic paper written at that time could yield such great value; we simply firmly believed that carbon dioxide is also an important carbon resource.” ” It is understood that the team now possesses core technologies such as catalyst development, reactor design, process package development, and engineering design. Following successful demonstrations in the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park and the Houston Petrochemical Complex, Sun Yuhan revealed that the team plans to expand into the steel industry in order to explore new applications for the sustainable utilization of carbon dioxide.