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The direct liquefaction production line for Ordos coal has caught the attention of international peers. Author/Source: Science and Technology Daily, Date: 2019-05-14, Clicks: 2. Recently, the routine maintenance of the million-ton direct liquefaction production line at the Ordos coal-to-oil facility of **Energy Group has entered its final stage; this large-scale production line is working at full capacity to meet its annual production targets. “With continuous breakthroughs in independently developed technologies, the domestic production rate of our production lines has exceeded 98%. This means that this world’s first coal direct liquefaction production line is now firmly in China’s control. ”Lu Zhao, the business manager of the coal liquefaction production center at the company’s innovation studio, told a reporter from Science and Technology Daily. Technology integration drives the momentum for innovation. During interviews, the reporter learned that the core production process of the coal direct liquefaction line at **Energy Group is independently developed in China and represents a global first. However, the key components in various stages of this production line used to rely on imports; they had a short lifespan and high costs, which for a long time constrained the production efficiency of coal-to-oil conversion. Hu Qingbin, the company’s deputy general manager, told reporters: “Unlike petrochemical plants that refine crude oil into refined products, coal direct liquefaction plants use coal powder as an additional process medium in addition to the traditional gas and liquid phases. It involves a catalytic hydrogenation reaction involving gas, liquid, and solid phases under conditions of high temperature, high pressure, and high sulfur content.” During its engineering process, there are numerous global technical challenges to address, such as preventing coking, deposition, blockage, wear, and corrosion. Solving these challenges can only be achieved by focusing on key technologies and critical components, through independent innovation and research and development. ” The high differential pressure relief valve for coal liquefaction is a critical component with extremely strict requirements regarding its design and alloy composition; without it, the entire production line will come to a halt. Before possessing its own core technologies, **the Ordos Coal-to-Oil Branch of the Energy Group relied on importing these components to ensure the smooth operation of its production lines. “As a core component of the coal liquefaction separation system, this valve must withstand a pressure difference of 16 megapascals in a high-solid-content medium at a temperature of 420°C, as well as extremely high instantaneous erosion forces. During the first test run, the service life of this component was less than a day at the shortest, and less than 200 hours at the longest, thus becoming a bottleneck that hindered production operations. The products imported from Germany and used in the early stages of operation of the device had a combined cost of 8.8 million yuan per unit, and they broke down and became unusable after just over 70 hours of use. The data we collected at that time showed that the valve cores developed by Japan specifically for direct coal liquefaction failed after only 72 hours of use, while the longest service life of similar high differential pressure control valves developed in other countries was 1,008 hours. ”Hu Qingbin recalled to the reporters the production conditions in the early stages of the production line’s operation. To address this critical bottleneck technology, the Ordos Coal-to-Oil Branch of the Energy Group established an innovation studio, bringing together the company’s technical experts to form a R&D team that focused on developing solutions for the production processes of key components in coal direct liquefaction plants. The achievements in technological innovation are renowned worldwide. Drawing on practical experience, the research team promptly identified issues with the structure of the pressure relief valves and boldly proposed suggestions for domestic production modifications, which significantly extended the service life of these valves. In the company’s innovation studio display case, an imported pressure relief valve that broke after just a few days of use is placed next to a domestic valve that has remained largely intact after 2000 hours of use; the difference is evident at a glance. “From a technical perspective, we re-calculated the structural design of the valve based on fluid dynamics theory and employed surface coating hardening technology to ultimately produce a product that is entirely domestically manufactured. The longest recorded usage time for imported components is 72 hours, while our new products maintain a stable service life of 2500 hours. The entire system enables continuous online switching operation, removing a major obstacle to the industrialization of direct coal liquefaction. The cost of each valve unit has also been reduced to 2.2 million yuan, resulting in savings of over 26 million yuan for the four valve units in total. ”Lü Zhao explained. Since 2009, with the breakthrough of various key technologies, **the coal direct liquefaction technology developed by the Ordos Coal-to-Oil Branch of the Energy Group has been granted 213 patents; the core processes related to this technology have received invention patents in 9 countries and regions including the United States, Russia, and the European Union**. Li Ruiguang, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of the company, said, “At present, the proportion of domestically produced equipment in our production lines has reached 98.39%. This not only contributes to the economic growth of domestic upstream industries but also enhances the R&D and manufacturing capabilities of key equipment among many domestic manufacturers.” With the gradual localization of key equipment such as wear-resistant centrifugal pumps, wear-resistant ball valves, GrayLOC flanges, coal burners for gasification furnaces, ceramic filter elements for HPHT fly ash filters in gasification processes, and high-differential-pressure pressure relief valves, the exorbitant profits generated by imported products have come to an end. The problem of reliance on foreign equipment has been completely resolved, and this has also earned widespread respect from international peers. ” In the eyes of those working in the coal chemical industry, **Energy Group’s world-first million-ton direct liquefaction production line is highly attractive. Energy departments and research institutions from countries such as Russia, Mongolia, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia have already sent or are planning to send personnel to sites where coal is directly liquefied in order to learn from the experience there. A foreign expert who earned $1,850 per day during the equipment installation also said he was willing to stay here and do ‘service work’ for no pay at all.