Coal-to-oil technology gets further upgraded

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Further Improvement in Coal-to-Oil Technology Author/Source: **Energy Group Date: 2022-03-20 Clicks: 15 On February 24, 2022, the key research and development project undertaken by **Energy Group, titled “Development of Advanced Technologies for Indirect Coal Liquefaction and Product Processing,” successfully passed the evaluation by the **Ministry of Science and Technology. Led by the **Energy Group**, this project saw a consortium of 13 organizations, including the Energy Group’s Ningxia Coal Industry and the Low-Carbon Research Institute, in collaboration with the Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tsinghua University, form a industry-academia-research team. Addressing the key bottlenecks identified during the operation of existing industrial demonstration projects, they developed 5 core technologies that were put into industrial use, generating significant economic and social benefits. What are the 5 core technologies? Technology for preparing high-performance iron-based Fischer-Tropsch synthesis catalysts ✦ **The catalysts developed by the Low-Carbon Research Institute of the Energy Group for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis: The most crucial element in the indirect liquefaction of coal is the “catalyst”; the molecules in coal need to be broken down and reassembled on the surface of the catalyst to form various liquid fuels. **Through theoretical innovation, the Low-Carbon Research Institute of the Energy Group conducted in-depth studies on the transformation patterns of iron carbide, the main component of iron-based catalysts used in coal indirect liquefaction. For the first time, pure-phase iron carbide was synthesized; these findings were published in a scientific journal and covered by more than 30 international media outlets, including Xinhua News Agency. On this basis, the research team has innovatively developed iron-boron-based catalysts as well as a green, energy-saving, and wear-resistant CNFT-1 catalyst production process. By using the CNFT-1 catalyst, the wax and iron content in the effluent from the reactor was significantly reduced. Problems of clogging in devices such as the filtration system and heat exchangers were resolved, the amount of clay required for wax purification was greatly decreased, and operations became smoother. ✦ Products manufactured using the CNFT-1 catalyst; high-throughput slurry bed reactor technology. The research team developed an improved model for the slurry bed reactors in coal indirect liquefaction plants, enhancing the efficiency of separating high-concentration catalysts from liquid wax within these reactors. After industrial application, the stable operating life of the filter increased from 1 year to 3 years. With a high-concentration catalyst and without making major changes to the reactor, the reactor’s production capacity increased from 500,000 tons per year to 580,000 tons per year. ✦ Schematic diagram of increasing the capacity of slurry bed reactors. Production of sulfur-free, low-olefin, low-aromatic country VI diesel. A research team has developed a technology that involves blending directly liquefied oil with indirectly liquefied oil to produce sulfur-free, low-olefin, low-aromatic country VI diesel. Gasoline and diesel meeting the National VI standards were produced using fully synthetic oil as raw material. ✦ Storage tanks for Adjust for National VI standards diesel; low-cost extraction technology for low-carbon oxygen compounds from synthetic water. Through integrated technological innovations such as membrane separation and distillation in separate towers, the research team has achieved energy-efficient and low-alkali treatment of FTO synthesis water with high COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand, an indicator of water quality) and high acidity. The quality of the treated recycled water meets the standards required for reuse as cooling water, make-up water, or boiler feed water. The amount of alkali used in processing 10,000 tons of water has been reduced by nearly 50%, resulting in a reduction of almost 10,000 tons of waste salt per year. ✦ Industrial facilities for producing synthetic water; technologies for preparing high-performance cobalt-based Fischer-Tropsch synthesis catalysts. In addition to developing new iron-based catalysts for the indirect liquefaction of coal, the research team has also conducted studies on another type of catalyst commonly used in this process – cobalt-based catalysts. The team innovatively developed a cobalt carbide-mediated in-situ recrystallization technique to create the DLFT-1 high-performance cobalt-based catalyst, addressing technical issues such as low yield, low activity, and poor stability of cobalt-based catalysts. The DLFT-1 catalyst was put into industrial use in Sinopec’s 120,000-ton/year slurry-bed FTO synthesis pilot plant, filling the technical gap in domestic cobalt-based slurry-bed FTO synthesis technology. China’s ‘technology tree’ for indirect coal liquefaction is now more complete! ✦ The mass-produced DLFT-1 catalyst, as a result of the successful development and implementation of the \"Development of Advanced Technologies for Coal Indirect Liquefaction and Product Processing\" project, has led to the creation of a new generation of green, efficient, and energy-saving coal indirect liquefaction technologies aimed at producing National VI standard gasoline and diesel products. This has further enhanced China’s ability to develop catalysts, processes, equipment, and platforms for coal indirect liquefaction independently, thereby promoting the advancement, diversification, and low-carbon development of China’s coal chemical industry.