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With a total investment of 6.98 billion yuan, the world’s largest coal-based ethanol project has been completed! Author/Source: Gasification World Date: 2022-06-30 Clicks: 15 On June 30, the Yushen 500,000 tons/year coal-based ethanol project owned by Yanchang Petroleum, with a total investment of 6.98 billion yuan, was completed in the Yushen Industrial Park in Yulin City. Using coal as raw material, this project produces anhydrous ethanol and other chemical products; it is capable of processing 1.5 million tons of low-grade coal per year. It represents an industrial scale-up project by Yanchang Petroleum following the successful implementation of the world’s first 100,000 tons per year coal-based ethanol technology demonstration project, and it is currently the largest coal-based ethanol project in the world. This project utilizes an internationally advanced methanol carbonylation technology for ethanol production, which was jointly developed by the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Yanchang Petroleum and features independent intellectual property rights. It represents a completely new, environment-friendly technological route in the global coal chemical industry, adding to the existing four main approaches of coal-to-olefins, coal-to-oil, coal-to-natural gas, and coal-to-ethylene glycol. According to experts, based on the ratio of 3 tons of grain required to produce 1 ton of ethanol, once the 500,000-ton/year coal-based ethanol project in Yulin is put into operation, it will enable the savings of 1.5 million tons of grain that can be used as raw material for bioethanol each year. This amount corresponds to 65% of Yulin’s annual grain production (2.3 million tons on average). It is known that ethanol is recognized worldwide as an excellent additive for gasoline, as well as an important basic chemical. It can be used to produce substances such as acetaldehyde and chloroethanol, and it serves as a precursor for intermediates in the manufacture of dyes, detergents, and more than 300 other products. Currently, ethanol production worldwide relies primarily on biomass materials such as grains. However, given China’s situation of a large population and limited land area, the use of grain-based ethanol is not suitable for widespread adoption. Meanwhile, the energy structure dominated by coal creates broad market prospects for coal-based ethanol. The Yushen coal-based ethanol project was approved for implementation on November 1, 2018; construction began on June 6, 2020. It was completed on June 30 of this year, and trial operations are scheduled to start within the same year. It is expected to generate annual revenues of 3.071 billion yuan, a total profit of 1.126 billion yuan, and a financial contribution of 567 million yuan, while also creating employment for over 1,000 people. A responsible official from Yanchang Petroleum said that in the next step, the company will rely heavily on the functions of the Qinchuangyuan Innovation-driven Platform’s technology transformation \"accelerator\" and the mechanism for integrating the two industrial chains. Building on the 500,000 tons per year coal-based ethanol production project, it will actively expand the downstream industrial chain by developing high-value specialty chemicals such as methyl methacrylate and polyglycolic acid. This approach will help to promote the advancement, diversification, and low-carbon development of the coal chemical industry, thereby making greater contributions to Shaanxi Province’s efforts to efficiently utilize coal resources and to helping Yulin become a leading national hub for new types of chemical industries that make use of coal resources throughout their entire production process.