Another new industrial breakthrough has been achieved in carbon dioxide conversion! Ion liquid-catalyzed carbon dioxide synthesis of carbonates technology enables operation of 100,000-ton industrial plants
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The Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, announced on May 24 that a new set of green and low-carbon technologies for synthesizing carbonates from carbon dioxide using ionic liquids as catalysts has recently passed the evaluation for technological achievement organized by the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation. This achievement was developed through collaboration between the ionic liquid research team at the Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and companies such as Shenzhen Xinzhoubang Technology Co., Ltd.; it represents a systematic innovation in terms of ionic liquid catalysts, reactors, and production processes. Through joint efforts, an industrial facility capable of producing 100,000 tons per year of carbonate using ionic liquid catalysts for the synthesis of carbon dioxide was built in the **-class petrochemical zone in Daya Bay, Huizhou, Guangdong. Since March 2021, it has been operating stably for 14 consecutive months; the carbonate products (including vinyl carbonate and dimethyl carbonate, etc.) meet electronic-grade standards, while the ethylene glycol products meet polyester-grade standards. The system’s energy consumption has been reduced by 37%.
The ionic liquid team at the Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has designed and developed ionic liquid catalysts with synergistic enhancement from cations and anions, along with techniques for their large-scale production, overcoming issues such as low activity of ionic liquids, high costs, and poor stability over extended operation periods； Key technologies such as uniform gas-liquid distribution in large-scale ionic liquid reactors and efficient coordination between reaction and mass transfer were overcome, thereby effectively suppressing side reactions and achieving high-efficiency and high-selectivity conversion of carbon dioxide into ethylene oxide ； A new reaction system featuring staged conversion, falling film separation, and closed-loop circulation was developed, enabling the safe and controlled production of highly active ethylene oxide as well as the execution of exothermic reaction processes ； Technologies for enhancing the reaction-separation coupling process and optimizing the utilization of energy hierarchies have been developed, which significantly increased the one-pass conversion rate and reduced the system’s energy consumption. The outstanding advantage of this achievement is the use of industrially emitted carbon dioxide to produce electronic-grade carbonates while simultaneously generating polyester-grade ethylene glycol, which further improves the economic efficiency of the entire production system and addresses the challenges that have hindered its large-scale application.