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Industrial Application of Coal-to-Ethanol in China Author/Source: Date: 2017-08-09 Clicks: 14 Recently, the world’s first facility for producing anhydrous ethanol from coke oven gas, developed by Chinese companies, came online. This marks the industrialization of new technologies for converting coal into ethanol, and it holds great practical significance for transforming China’s fuel structure. Given that the utilization rate of coke oven gas in China is currently only around 70%, with most of it being used for low-level applications, the commissioning of projects to produce anhydrous ethanol from coke oven gas not only enables manufacturing enterprises to achieve economic benefits but also provides new solutions for the efficient production and use of clean energy. Recently, Zhongrong Technology Co., Ltd. held a launch event for this project in Qianan City, Hebei Province, announcing that the first industrial-scale facility in the world capable of producing 300,000 tons of anhydrous ethanol per year – specifically, the first phase of the plant with an annual production capacity of 100,000 tons – has successfully started operations there, producing anhydrous ethanol with a purity of 99.98%. The production process is scientific and effective. In traditional industrial production, anhydrous ethanol is used to blend ethanol gasoline. According to Dai Shumei, chairman of Zhongrong Technology Company, China is a major steel-producing country, and the production of steel relies on coke. The production of coke generates coke oven gas as a by-product, which is primarily composed of hydrogen and methane. Under the current circumstances, most enterprises across the country burn coke oven gas directly as fuel. It is a shame that hydrogen, being a useful fuel, is burned away; however, due to difficulties in development, around 70% of the nearly 200 billion cubic meters of coke oven gas produced each year by coke production plants is used as fuel for industrial purposes, as well as for urban industries and residential use. Some of this gas is even burned directly in factories and released into the atmosphere, resulting in at least 9,655.9 tons of sulfur dioxide pollution each year. Through chemical methods, Zhongrong Technology extracts hydrogen from coke oven gas to use it as a raw material for ethanol hydrogenation; this hydrogen is then combined with acetic acid to produce anhydrous ethanol, thereby achieving high-value utilization of the material. While producing the main product, methane from the gas can also be extracted and used as natural gas, thereby enabling the most efficient utilization of all components in the coke oven gas. Dai Shumei told the reporter that there are many successful examples of using coke oven gas to produce chemical products both domestically and internationally, but its use to manufacture anhydrous ethanol is a first in the world. “Through 8 years of rigorous research, the company’s engineering and technical staff transformed theories into laboratory data, then turned those laboratory data into a pilot production facility with an annual output of 15,000 tons. Further expansion and optimization of this pilot facility resulted in an industrial production site with an annual output of 300,000 tons. An investment of 450 million yuan was sufficient to build a 100,000-ton capacity anhydrous ethanol production facility, while an investment of 800 million yuan can enable a production capacity of 300,000 tons. ”Dai Shumei said. Technological innovation creates business opportunities. The success of innovative projects can be measured in terms of economic benefits. Li Qiuyuan, the project manager at Zhongrong Technology, did some calculations: the production cost of anhydrous ethanol using coke oven gas is approximately 4,100 yuan per ton. Currently, the price of anhydrous ethanol is around 5,300 yuan per ton. The price of by-product natural gas is 2.2 yuan per cubic meter. Additionally, it can be flexibly adjusted according to market demands to produce ethyl acetate, at a price of around 4,800 yuan per ton. “Currently, the average ex-factory price of No. 92 gasoline in the market is around 6,000 yuan per ton, while fuel ethanol, when converted using the **guidance price for purchases, amounts to 5,284 yuan per ton. In this way, the profit per ton of anhydrous ethanol is over 1,000 yuan. ”Li Qiuyuan said. Li Qiuyuan stated that using coke oven gas to produce anhydrous ethanol offers a significant price advantage, whether it is for creating new products from coke oven gas or for producing anhydrous ethanol from other raw materials. In the case of the former, coke oven gas can be converted into a number of products through chemical processes, which helps to reduce production costs; however, these products do not have a significant price advantage. For example, there are several production lines in our country that use coke oven gas to produce methanol; their production costs are around 2,000 yuan per ton, and the selling price is also around 2,000 yuan per ton, which discourages companies from engaging in such production ； Regarding the latter, there are currently many production lines in our country that use crops to produce anhydrous ethanol; some of these enterprises employ a fermentation process using cereal grains to manufacture anhydrous ethanol, with production costs ranging around 5,200 yuan per ton. Some companies use the cassava fermentation method to produce anhydrous ethanol, with costs of over 5,000 yuan per ton; these costs are about 25% higher than those associated with producing anhydrous ethanol using coke oven gas. Social and economic benefits are significant. Given the promising market prospects for producing anhydrous ethanol using coke oven gas, many companies have expressed interest in participating in joint development efforts. Zhang Guohong, secretary-general of the Alcohol Branch of the China Alcoholic Drinks Association, said that anhydrous ethanol contains 34.7% oxygen. If gasoline contains 10% ethanol, it enables the gasoline to burn more completely, reducing PM2.5 levels in exhaust gases by over 40%, as well as carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons by more than 30%. Therefore, developed countries such as those in Europe and the United States widely use ethanol-based gasoline. In 2016, the United States used E10 ethanol gasoline in over 90% of its areas, with the production and consumption of fuel ethanol reaching 45.78 million tons ； In 2016, Brazil used ethanol-blended gasoline throughout the country, with production and consumption of fuel ethanol reaching 19.38 million tons; in contrast, China’s production and consumption of fuel ethanol in 2016 was only 2.6 million tons. Zhang Guohong believes that this is directly related to China’s efforts to ensure food security and the high costs of production. Industry experts believe that the commissioning of China Solvent Technology’s world’s first project for producing anhydrous ethanol from coke oven gas marks the full industrialization of new technologies for producing ethanol from coal, which holds great practical significance for transforming China’s fuel structure. Our country is the world’s largest holder and user of coal, as well as the world’s leading producer of steel, and steel production relies on coke. In 2016, China’s coke production was 449.11 million tons. Assuming that 1 ton of coke generates 430 cubic meters of coke oven gas, China produced 193.117 billion cubic meters of coke oven gas in that year. At present, the utilization rate of coke oven gas is only around 70%, and most of it is used in basic ways without further exploitation. If it is used in the production of anhydrous ethanol, it can not only increase the revenue generated by gas producers by about 30%, but also enable 100,000 tons of anhydrous ethanol to be produced from every 1 million tons of coke oven gas generated during coking processes. In this way, the current situation in our country, where tens of millions of tons of grain are used each year to produce ethanol, can be changed. At the same time, it can also help improve the situation in which our country relies on imports for 60% of its oil needs, by providing an alternative route. This is good news for **food security, energy security, environmental safety, and increased profits for manufacturing enterprises; the market prospects are very promising.