Latest progress on the commissioning of Shanxi’s 1.8 million tons per year coal-to-oil project

Thread Content

This post was last edited by liaifeng on 2018-8-9 at 08:59. Latest progress on the commissioning of Shanxi’s 1.8 million-ton coal-to-oil project. Author/Source: Date: 2017-11-22. Clicks: 9. Recently, the pilot tests for the integrated oil, chemical, and thermal power generation project aimed at the clean utilization of high-sulfur coal in Shanxi’s Lu’an area were carried out successfully. The hydrogen gas tightness test for the Fischer-Tropsch reduction unit was completed successfully, indicating that this unit is ready for feeding trials; thus, the commissioning of the project has entered its final stage. As the trial production work progressed, the hydrogen airtightness test for the FTO reduction unit of Project 180 was successfully completed. Achieving hydrogen gas tightness represents a major milestone in the overall commissioning of the synthesis plant; the completion of this task indicates that the reduction unit can now undergo trial operation with feed materials. Normal operation of the catalyst reduction unit takes place in a hydrogen-rich environment, where hydrogen has higher permeability. To ensure greater reliability in terms of gas tightness, technicians conduct hydrogen-based leak tests after confirming that the system is airtight using nitrogen. These hydrogen-based tests use hydrogen as a medium to check again the sealing performance of all connections in the container and pipeline systems, including welds, flanges, instruments, valves, and other components that can be disconnected, in order to guarantee that the pipelines and containers remain airtight under operating pressure. At 12:54 on November 16, the exhaust gas hydrogen production unit of Project 180 successfully produced hydrogen with a purity of 99.9%, laying a solid foundation for achieving the oil production target. The exhaust gas hydrogen production system uses pressure swing adsorption technology to remove impurities from the purified syngas coming from the purified low-temperature methanol washing unit, thereby producing hydrogen of 99.9% purity that is sent out of the facility; it is the only source of hydrogen required for the project’s operations. After the PSA process for hydrogen production from exhaust gases generates qualified hydrogen, the catalysts for Fischer-Tropsch reduction and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis are activated first ； Secondly, during hydrorefining and hydrocracking processes, hydrogen is used as a raw material in the production of petroleum products ； Finally, hydrogen also acts as a heat transfer medium, carrying away the heat generated by the reaction in a timely manner to control the temperature rise in the catalyst bed and prevent coking of the catalyst, thus serving to protect it. The successful production of qualified hydrogen signifies that all the raw materials required for oil production are now available, indicating that the timeline for achieving oil output in Project 180 has begun, which holds great significance during the project’s trial production phase. The integrated demonstration project for the clean utilization of high-sulfur coal for oil, chemical, and thermal applications in Shanxi Lu’an is located in the Wangqiao Industrial Park, Xiangyuan County, Changzhi City, Shanxi Province. It was invested and constructed by Shanxi Lu’an Mining (Group) Co., Ltd., and it represents a key project focused on during the 12th Five-Year Plan period, as well as a crucial initiative for Shanxi Province’s industrial structure transformation. Using coal with high sulfur, high ash content, and high ash melting point as raw material, the project employs the SHELL dry powder gasification process to achieve a technological breakthrough with the first powder gasifier having a capacity of 3,000 tons per day. The project utilizes the iron-based high-temperature slurry-bed F-T synthetic oil technology developed by CAS, which possesses complete independent intellectual property rights. Phase 1 of the project involves the construction of a pilot industrial facility for iron-based slurry-bed Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and oil product processing, with an annual production capacity of 1 million tons of oil products and chemicals. The facility will also include a 108 MW waste heat power generation unit. The main components of the facility include gasification units, purification units, Fischer-Tropsch synthesis units, oil product processing units, waste heat power generation units, as well as various supporting utility systems ； Phase II involves the construction of a 800,000 tons per year industrial demonstration facility for the processing of cobalt-based Fischer-Tropsch wax.