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The pilot-scale furnace unit of Xi’an Aerospace Yuanpower Engineering Co., Ltd. has been successfully tested! Author/Source: Xi’an Aerospace Yuanpower Engineering Co., Ltd. Date: 2020-01-15 Clicks: 38 At 8:00 a.m. on January 2, 2020, the Jinhang furnace pilot plant developed by the company was successfully tested, marking a successful start to the new year. After 34 hours of joint thermal trial operation, the device successfully completed the entire process under severe cold conditions; the test data met the design specifications, thus fulfilling the testing objectives for this phase. The success of this test marks the resolution of the world-class industry challenge related to the liquid slag discharge using high ash fusion point anthracite, and it also signifies the completion of the world’s only research and testing center for pressurized slag gasification using anthracite. This opens up a new path for the transformation and upgrading of the traditional nitrogen fertilizer industry. As the project with the largest investment in research and development for aerospace technology applications at the Sixth Academy, and with the strong support of the academy and the concerted efforts of all parties involved, the project team worked diligently for 279 days. Overcoming various challenges such as tight deadlines, heavy workload, high technical difficulties, and a shortage of personnel, they explored innovative cooperation models and successfully partnered with the Beijing Aerospace Innovation Patent Investment Center. This partnership provided substantial financial support for the research and development of the Jinhang Furnace project, laying a solid foundation for its progress. Break free from constraints and find new paths for anthracite – the challenge to do so is urgent. Our country is rich in coal but poor in oil and gas; coal resources play a crucial role as raw materials for production, especially in the nitrogen fertilizer industry. Anthracite, being a high-quality type of coal, accounts for over 50% of the coal consumed in the traditional nitrogen fertilizer industry. At present, however, Jinmei Group, as well as China’s traditional nitrogen fertilizer industry, is facing three major constraints. First, **environmental protection policies explicitly prohibit it.** Currently, the traditional nitrogen fertilizer industry still relies on fixed-bed batch gas generation furnaces (UGI) as the primary type of furnace for gas production; there are around 3,000 such furnaces in use. However, due to their low productivity, inefficiency, high levels of pollution, and excessive emissions, they are facing elimination and shutdown. Second, “even the emperor’s daughters struggle to find husbands.” The high output of high-quality anthracite once made Jincheng Coal Group, the industry leader in coal production, feel confident that it wouldn’t have any trouble finding buyers for its products. However, this wave of environmental policies will bring an end to the manufacturing processes most suitable for the industrial use of anthracite coal. What will become of anthracite coal then? How will the lump coal market transform again? Third, there are continuous doubts from the industry. As of now, no gasification technology exists that can solve this world-class challenge of achieving high-ash-melting-point liquid slag discharge from smokeless lump coal. “Finding more economical, efficient, and environmentally friendly new pathways for the smokeless lump coal market, and achieving our strategic goal of ’selling coal along with the stoves’, will be a vital project that impacts the development of the group. ”Yuan Fengzhen, director of the Coal Chemical Engineering Research Institute of Jinmei Group, explained it in this way. Explore market demands in depth to address customers’ pain points. This is the driving force that keeps the company true to its original aspirations and moving forward; it aims to break through constraints and find a new path for smokeless lump coal. As a pilot plant, it is designed with a coal feeding rate of 240 tons per day, and it can certainly be considered a fully functional industrial facility. As a gasification system project, the Jinhang furnace features a very high degree of integration, comprising 11 subsystems, 7 sets of equipment, over 700 instruments and valves, as well as more than 900 DCS control points. It covers various fields such as process engineering, piping, automatic control, instrumentation, electrical systems, civil engineering, HVAC, powder handling, water supply and drainage, and fire protection. It functions like a circular chain – only when every link is flawless can the successful operation of the system be ensured. Since the ash melting point of smokeless lump coal is above 1500°C, finding a way to achieve liquid slag discharge for coal with a high ash melting point is a top priority in the technical efforts of this project. If liquid slag removal is to be achieved solely by increasing the operating temperature, this will have a significant impact on the economics and long-term operation of the gasifier. Leveraging years of expertise and experience in technologies such as heat transfer, combustion, and control for liquid rocket engines, the project team, based on research on slag pools, carried out a detailed design of the furnace by focusing on the properties of the slag and heat transfer mechanisms. Precise control of the combustion system provided operational support to facilitate liquid slag discharge. Thereby achieving the liquid slag discharge of coal with high ash fusion point while taking into account both economy and reliability. In addition, they applied theoretical calculations and numerical simulation studies as well, overcoming one by one various key technologies such as syngas treatment techniques, online monitoring of gasification unit systems, and intelligent control technologies. It took only 1 year and 4 months from the official start of the project’s design to its actual ignition ； It took only 279 days from groundbreaking to the vehicle being successfully driven. At 9:30 on January 1, 2020, when the orange-yellow flames burst forth from the torch, in the control room, some people cheered and applauded, some hugged each other tightly, and some had tears in their eyes... \"You’ve gone through so much; it’s a product of Aerospace Power Source – reliable indeed!\" ”Luo Yongdong, head of the Development Planning Department at Jinmei Tianyuan Company, was extremely excited. During the commissioning of this pilot plant, the effective gas yield of the Jinhang furnace, liquid slag discharge, and sequential control interlock systems were all verified. After operation, the carbon conversion rate can reach 99.67%, the content of effective components is greater than 90%, and the steam decomposition rate is above 95%. The resulting slag takes on a harmless glassy form, the amount of wastewater generated is significantly reduced, and all these parameters are markedly improved compared to those of fixed-bed gasification. “In the future, we will closely adhere to the **environmental protection strategy**, continuously improve our pressurized slag gasification technology for lump coal, and make full use of the R&D and testing platforms to carry out further experiments on various types of coal such as anthracite, bituminous coal, and lignite, as well as research on the hierarchical utilization of coal. We aim to contribute our expertise from the aerospace sector to the clean and efficient utilization of China’s coal resources. ”Yang Weidong said confidently. The future has arrived, and the company is well-prepared to move forward more steadily and reach greater distances on this new journey of high growth in three key areas!