Thread Content
Author/Source: China Chemical Industry News Date: 2009-4-15 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Significant progress has been made in the project carried out by Yungang Group on the development and scale-up of iron-based catalysts using the fluidized-bed high-temperature Fischer-Tropsch synthesis precipitation method. The company can not only provide reliable catalysts and production technologies for large-scale high-temperature Fischer-Tropsch coal-to-oil plants, but its key pilot-scale performance indicators have also reached international leading levels. This achievement was evaluated by experts in Beijing last week, and efforts are currently being intensified to develop and integrate the process technology software. At the appraisal meeting organized by the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Association, experts such as Xie Kechang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, believed that this independently developed technical achievement was innovative, and recommended conducting further industrial application tests to advance the industrialization of high-temperature coal indirect liquefaction technology in China. Experts point out that given Yankuang Group’s capability to build production facilities for 10,000-ton volumes of coal-based synthetic gasoline, as well as its ownership of independent intellectual property rights in key technologies and catalyst development, it is possible to establish a large-scale enterprise group focused on coal-based synthetic gasoline, thereby keeping the price of oil products below $20 per barrel. According to Sun Qiwen, general manager of Shanghai Yankuang Energy Technology R&D Co., Ltd., there are currently two main technical approaches for converting coal into oil: direct coal liquefaction and indirect coal liquefaction. The oil produced by the latter has a better quality than that of directly liquefied products. Not long ago, Shanxi Lu’an Group, which uses this process, began producing oil, and the technological achievement developed by Yankuang Group has taken another significant step forward in the industrialization of indirect coal-to-oil conversion. Indirect liquefaction technology can be divided into two processes: low-temperature Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and high-temperature Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. Previously, Shanghai Yankuang Energy Technology R&D Co., Ltd. had completed research on iron-based slurry-bed low-temperature Fischer-Tropsch synthesis catalysts, and passed the acceptance inspection organized by the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Association in November 2005. Subsequently, the company focused on developing high-temperature Fischer-Tropsch synthesis technology with independent intellectual property rights in China, and successfully created an iron-based catalyst using the fluidized-bed high-temperature Fischer-Tropsch synthesis precipitation method. In 2006, Yankuang Group began construction of a pilot-scale production facility capable of producing 100 tons of catalysts per year. The first batch of qualified catalysts was produced in January 2007, and all testing and production tasks were completed by December of the same year. Nearly a year of experimentation and production has shown that the catalyst preparation process is reasonable, with mild and easily controllable conditions. The catalyst produced on an industrial scale operated continuously for 550 hours in a pilot plant for high-temperature Fischer-Tropsch synthesis with a capacity of 5,000 tons per year; its performance metrics were comparable to or exceeded those of the catalyst developed in the laboratory, meeting the requirements of fluidized-bed synthesis reactors. To date, Shanghai Yankuang Energy Technology R&D Co., Ltd. has applied for 4 patents related to iron-based catalysts using the precipitation method in fluidized-bed high-temperature Fischer-Tropsch synthesis; 3 of these have been approved by the Patent Office, while another is currently under examination.