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**The Ministry of Ecology and Environment has once again accepted the environmental impact assessment documents for the Shenhua Baotou coal-to-olefins upgrading demonstration project. Author/Source: Huahua Network – Coal Chemicals. Date: 2020-01-05. Clicks: 42. Recently, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has accepted the environmental impact assessment documents for this project once again. Previously, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment approved Shenhua Baotou Coal Chemical Co., Ltd. to withdraw the environmental impact assessment report for the coal-to-olefins upgrading demonstration project. The project will follow the adjusted wastewater treatment plan, further refine and improve the project design, and on this basis enhance aspects of the report such as the retrospective evaluation of existing facilities, engineering analysis, environmental impact projections, pollution prevention and control measures, as well as environmental risk mitigation strategies and public participation. Shenhua Baotou Coal-to-Olefins Upgrade Demonstration Project: Nature of construction: Renovation and expansion. Scale of construction: Annual production capacity of 700,000 tons of polyolefins. Location of construction: Jiuyuan Industrial Park, Baotou City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (within the existing factory and on the south side of the current factory area; the ash disposal site will be located near the west side of the existing ash dump). Investment: The total investment for this project is approximately 17,150,806,100 yuan. Construction period: 4 years. Annual operating hours: 8,000 hours. Production system and workforce: Administrative staff, senior production managers, and logistics personnel will work in regular shifts, while the production department will operate on a five-shift, three-shift rotation basis. Number of employees required: 700, all of whom will be new hires. Project features: (1) Use of technical solutions with domestic intellectual property rights as well as domestically produced large-scale equipment. Advanced domestic pressurized coal gasification technology is planned to be used for coal gasification; this technology boasts a series of advantages such as low oxygen consumption, low coal consumption, and wide adaptability to different types of coal. Pressurized coal gasification belongs to the fluidized bed gasification technology. Fluidized bed gasification features high output per furnace and high gasification efficiency; it is suitable for large and very large chemical plants used in the production of methanol, acetic acid, synthetic ammonia, IGCC, etc., and it can also supply hydrogen for large petrochemical facilities. The production of olefins from methanol utilizes the SHMTO technology, for which Shenhua holds independent intellectual property rights. (2) Integrate with existing engineering systems to improve the reliability of system operation and ensure its long-term operation. The project expands the scale of the existing facilities and upgrades their technology; it adopts a dual-polymer approach using polyethylene and polypropylene, adjusts the product portfolio, and moves toward larger-scale and more intensive operations. Through systematic integration and scheduling, major maintenance that would require shutting down the entire plant can be carried out through minor maintenance that does not require shutdown. By integrating the existing facilities with the upgraded demonstration units, the reliability of the system and its ability to operate over long periods is improved, meeting the requirements of industrial transformation and upgrading. (3) Summarize the experience of existing factories, enhance the refined management of operations, and explore the establishment of smart factories. By summarizing the experiences and lessons gained from current industrial operations, more refined management practices should be adopted in areas such as environmental protection, monitoring, and energy efficiency management. This will enable the gradual automation of factory operations, leading to the transformation of these facilities into smart factories. (4) The project will no longer install new coal-fired boilers, opting instead for a direct power supply solution. The steam balance for the project is determined by taking into account the current steam usage in existing facilities; any high-pressure steam that is lacking, such as that required for startup, is supplied by the thermal power center of those existing facilities. The medium and low-pressure steam generated as a by-product of the process boilers in this project is used for the needs of this project itself, while the excess amount is sent to the steam pipeline network of the same grade in existing facilities. High-power compressors located in the explosion-proof areas of the process facilities should preferably be driven by steam, while compressors in non-explosion-proof areas should use direct electric drive systems as much as possible; coal-fired boilers, steam turbine generators, and waste heat generators shall not be installed. Once completed and put into operation, this upgrade demonstration project will **alleviate the current issues of excessive power load in the Mengxi power grid, low annual operating hours for power plants, and low operating loads at these plants. (5) Adhere to strict environmental protection standards. The project does not use coal-fired boilers, resulting in emission levels of particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and the like that are much lower than those of similar projects ； At the same time, the project employs advanced production processes and stringent environmental protection measures to minimize the emission of various pollutants, thereby meeting strict environmental standards. If the sulfur recovery unit in this project adopts advanced exhaust gas treatment technologies (Claus process + exhaust gas hydrogenation reduction + alkaline desulfurization), the SO2 concentration in the emitted exhaust gas will meet the special emission limit specified in the \"Emission Standards for Pollutants in Petroleum Refining Industry\" (GB 31570—2015), which is 100 mg/m3 ； At the same time, this project includes the construction of crystallization and salt separation facilities to upgrade the existing process wastewater by controlling salt content and improving its quality, thereby ensuring that no wastewater from the entire plant is discharged outside. (6) High energy conversion efficiency. By adopting various advanced processes and energy-saving measures, such as waste heat recovery, fuel gas recovery, and efficient olefin separation, the project has effectively improved its energy conversion efficiency. The comprehensive energy consumption per unit of olefin product for this project is 2.22 tons of standard coal, which is below the required level of 2.8 tons of standard coal. The amount of fresh water consumed is 9.47 tons, also below the allowable threshold of 16 tons. The energy conversion efficiency of this project is 45.06%, which meets the requirement of being greater than 44%. (7) Reduce water consumption. Under normal operating conditions, the production wastewater, domestic sewage, and polluted rainwater generated by the project are subjected to advanced wastewater reuse treatment as well as membrane concentration, evaporation, and crystallization processes, ensuring that no wastewater is discharged from the plant. In case of abnormal conditions such as operational failures or instability in the project’s wastewater treatment and reuse systems, various buffer tanks within the plant along with the excess processing capacity of the existing wastewater treatment systems are utilized for buffering and treatment. At the same time, through the approach of using new technologies to upgrade existing ones, the wastewater treatment systems of existing facilities are upgraded to control salt content and improve water quality; the reverse osmosis concentrate from these facilities is processed using the membrane concentration and evaporation crystallization units newly installed in this project, so that salts can be extracted, the water quality can be improved, and the water can then be reused. This project reduces its water consumption by adopting various water-saving processes and measures, such as extensive use of air cooling technology, closed-loop water systems, water-saving mist-suppressing cooling tower technology, replacement of steam drive with electric drive, and wastewater recycling technology. (8) Resource utilization of biochemical sludge: By directly incorporating the biochemical sludge, along with its contained water, into the existing water-coal slurry preparation process for use in the gasifier as a fuel additive, it is possible to utilize this biochemical sludge within the plant, thereby reducing solid waste and enabling its resource utilization. The process flow involves first converting the raw coal into syngas through coal gasification, with CO and H2 as the main products. Subsequently, coal is transformed into methanol using techniques such as carbon monoxide shift, low-temperature methanol washing, and methanol synthesis. Low-carbon olefins are then obtained through methanol-to-olefins processes. Olefin separation via pre-propanol removal followed by hydrogenation provides raw materials for downstream facilities used in the production of PP, PE, MTBE/butene-1, C4/C5+, among other products. Finally, target products such as polyethylene and polypropylene are obtained. http://img.yf116.cn/image/img/20200105/213587583833.jpg Product plan: The project uses a mixture of coal from the Bulatei Coal Mine, Cuncouta No. 2 Coal Mine, and Shangwan Coal Mine as raw material, and employs the pressurized gasification of coal to produce 200×104 tons per year of methanol (an intermediate product, on a 100% basis), through processes such as shift reaction, low-temperature methanol washing, and methanol synthesis. Of this amount, 195.21×104 t/a of methanol is used in methanol-to-olefins plants and olefin separation processes to produce intermediate products such as ethylene and propylene, which are then further processed into polyethylene and polypropylene. The remaining methanol is sent to existing facilities for use. The main products and intermediate products include MTO-grade methanol, polymerization-grade ethylene, polymerization-grade propylene, sulfur, MTBE, butene-1, polypropylene, polyethylene, etc. http://img.yf116.cn/image/img/20200105/21597590999.jpg http://img.yf116.cn/image/img/20200105/215397594083.jpg http://img.yf116.cn/image/img/20200105/216177597736.jpg http://img.yf116.cn/image/img/20200105/216537601341.jpg http://img.yf116.cn/image/img/20200105/217247604465.jpg http://img.yf116.cn/image/img/20200105/21857608580.jpg