By 2017, CO2 could already be used to produce olefins, gasoline, methanol, syngas, and biodegradable plastics

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By 2017, CO2 could already be used to produce olefins, gasoline, methanol, syngas, and biodegradable plastics — Part 4 of the series on cutting-edge coal chemical technologies in China. Author/Source: Date: 2017-11-29. Clicks: 33. Climate change: The Paris Agreement has taken effect; China has committed to establishing a national carbon emission trading market by the end of 2017. Additionally, the 13th Five-Year Plan for controlling greenhouse gas emissions sets a target of reducing CO2 emissions per unit of GDP by 18% by 2020 compared to 2015 levels. It can be assumed that the carbon reduction challenges faced by the coal chemical industry will become increasingly severe. Modern coal chemical production based on gasification enables the cost-effective separation and purification of CO2. Beyond CO2 sequestration, the use of cutting-edge technologies to produce high-value downstream products from CO2 has become a focus of research in the coal chemical industry. Since CO2 is a thermodynamically inert molecule, achieving its activation and highly selective conversion presents significant difficulties and challenges. Research by Yahuaxing Consulting shows that as research institutions continue to make technological breakthroughs, CO2 could be used in 2017 to produce olefins, gasoline, methanol, syngas, and biodegradable plastics. http://img.yf116.cn/image/img/20171129/1651566071640.jpg Methanol is an important product of the coal chemical industry; it can be used as a fuel (methanol blended with gasoline, MTG) as well as a raw material for chemical production (MTO, MTA, etc.). Producing methanol from carbon dioxide is an attractive option, and research institutions both domestically and internationally have carried out a range of technological developments and industrial demonstrations. In 2016, the Shanghai Advanced Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shanghai Huayi Group collaborated to develop a technical package for the production of methanol from carbon dioxide at a capacity of 100,000–300,000 tons per year; this package was approved by an expert panel, paving the way for its implementation on a commercial scale. According to reports from October 2017, Dr. Wang Jijie and Academician Li Can from the **Key Laboratory of Catalytic Fundamentals at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, developed a bimetallic solid solution oxide catalyst that enables the high-selective and highly stable hydrogenation of carbon dioxide (CO2) into methanol. The catalyst remained active after 500 hours of continuous operation without any degradation; it also exhibits excellent resistance to sintering and some degree of resistance to sulfur, indicating good prospects for industrial application. Gasoline: Laboratory research on the production of gasoline via CO2 hydrogenation was successful in 2017. In May 2017, the journal Nature Communations published a paper on the catalytic conversion of carbon dioxide into gasoline through hydrogenation. The research findings came from the research team led by researchers Sun Jian and Ge Qingjie from the Innovation Zone for Carbon Resources, Small Molecules, and Hydrogen Energy Utilization at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The newly designed Na-Fe3O4/HZSM-5 multifunctional composite catalyst developed by this team enabled the direct hydrogenation of carbon dioxide to produce high-octane gasoline for the first time. In June 2017, the research findings from the Key Laboratory of Low-Carbon Conversion Science and Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as the Joint Laboratory for Low-Carbon Energy of the Shanghai Advanced Institute and ShanghaiTech University, were published online in the journal Nature Chemistry. By using an indium oxide/molecular sieve (In2O3/HZSM-5) bifunctional catalyst, high-selective conversion of CO2 into liquid fuels was achieved through a single hydrogenation step. The R&D team has completed the scale-up of catalyst preparation, resulting in industrial-sized particle catalysts with high mechanical strength. Under industrial conditions, this catalyst system meets the requirements for demonstration applications. Olefins: According to news from November 2017, the team led by Li Can at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, made new progress in the catalytic hydrogenation of CO2 for the production of low-carbon olefins; they managed to convert CO2 into low-carbon olefins with high selectivity using a tandem catalyst system. This study developed a ZnZrO solid solution oxide/Zn-modified SAPO molecular sieve tandem catalyst. Under reaction conditions similar to those in industrial production, the catalyst (ZnZrO/SAPO) achieved a selectivity of 80–90% for lower carbon olefins in hydrocarbons, and it exhibited good stability as well as resistance to sulfur poisoning. Syngas: As reported in August 2017, the methane-carbon dioxide reforming project initiated jointly by the Shanghai Institute of Advanced Technology affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanxi Lu’an Mining (Group) Co., Ltd., and the Dutch oil company Shell has resulted in the construction of the world’s first industrial-scale unit for the self-heating reforming of methane and carbon dioxide to produce syngas, with that unit operating stably at a capacity of 10,000 Nm3/h. The methane and carbon dioxide autothermal reforming syngas production unit has been operating stably at the coal-to-oil facility of Shanxi Lu’an Group. Building on the preliminary trial operations and system optimizations, the unit began full-scale operation on June 21, 2017, and reached full capacity on July 10; on August 2, it completed the on-site calibration organized by the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation. As of mid-August, the device had been operating stably for over 1,000 hours, producing more than 20 Nm3 of product gas per day with a low H2/CO molar ratio, and converting up to 60 tons of CO2 per day. Carbon dioxide-based biodegradable plastics: These plastics belong to the category of fully biodegradable plastics; they can be completely degraded in the natural environment. They possess excellent properties such as transparency, biodegradability, high barrier capacity (against oxygen), and biological compatibility. Biodegradable plastics are mainly used in fields such as packaging, fibers, agriculture, and medicine. In 2016, the demand for biodegradable plastics in China was 1 million tons. In the coming years, as environmental regulations in the country become stricter, demand in this industry will continue to rise, with it is expected to exceed 2 million tons by 2020. As early as 2004, the industrial production of carbon dioxide-based polymers in China was already underway, but the scale was around a thousand tons per year. With continuous technological advancements and reduced production costs, the industrial scale of such polymers in China has now exceeded 100,000 tons per year. Currently, the 100,000-ton-per-year project for producing fully biodegradable plastics from carbon dioxide is under construction by Nanyang Zhongju Tianguan Low-Carbon Technology Co., Ltd ； The 300,000-ton per year carbon dioxide-based biodegradable plastic project of Broad Oriental New Chemicals (Jilin) Co., Ltd. utilizes the third-generation synthesis technology for polycarbonate allylate (PPC) biodegradable plastics developed by the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry under the Chinese Academy of Sciences; it is aimed at producing high-molecular-weight carbon dioxide-based biodegradable plastic mulch. The project’s foundation-laying ceremony was held in April 2017.