【Ten Years of Rapid Development in Chemical Equipment】The World’s First Ethanol Production Project from Coke Oven Gas, 1972–2017
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This post was last edited by Desert Fish on December 24, 2022, at 14:55. Witnessing the ten-year development of chemical processing equipment; praising the prosperity and strength of modern China. This is just a preliminary contribution – we welcome everyone to participate more actively in discussions on this forum. The more people involved, the more lively it becomes. Haichuan becomes even better with you here. Replies will be rewarded; feel free to discuss! ------------------------------------------------- On the morning of July 2nd, the launch ceremony for the world’s first project to produce ethanol from coke oven gas was held in Qian’an City, Hebei Province. This event marked a new step forward in the transformation and development of Qian’an, a city dependent on resource extraction. The project is located to the west of Xialu Village, Shaheyi Town, in Qian’an Economic Development Zone. It was invested and constructed by Tangshan Zhongrong Technology Co., Ltd. The facility makes use of the coke oven gas produced by nearby Lanhai Industrial Company and Baoliyuan Industrial Company to build three production lines capable of producing 300,000 tons of anhydrous ethanol per year. The first phase of the project, with a capacity of 100,000 tons of anhydrous ethanol, has been put into operation, with a total investment of 450 million yuan. It is understood that Tangshan Zhongrong Technology is a high-tech enterprise of ** level, specialized in the research, development, production, and sales of non-grain ethanol and its downstream products. In this project, Zhongrong Technology utilized 9 patents of its own invention; it represents the world’s first facility for producing ethanol from coke oven gas. This project enables the efficient, cost-effective, and high-quality production of ethanol, paving the way for the coal chemical industry to move toward cleaner energy sources. As a result, China’s ethanol industry can now operate without competing with food production for grain resources.
Since 2009, Tangshan Zhongrong Technology has been researching the process of producing ethanol from acetic acid through hydrogenation. After going through laboratory tests, pilot studies, and 8,000 hours of pilot-scale testing, industrial production was launched in 2013, resulting in the construction of the world’s first production line capable of manufacturing 15,000 tons of anhydrous ethanol per year. This facility has been operating steadily for three years with good performance. The expansion project in Yuan’an, which aims to produce ethanol using 100,000 tons of coke oven gas efficiently, was successful from the first attempt. On December 24, 2016, the project it developed for its own use, titled “Research on Key Technologies for the Efficient Utilization of Coke Oven Gas and Acetic Acid to Produce Ethanol and Their Industrial Application,” passed the evaluation of scientific and technological achievements. The experts present agreed that the project’s technologies possess independent intellectual property rights, and that the overall technical level is at the leading stage in China ； Secondly, the product quality is excellent; the anhydrous ethanol produced this time has a purity of 99.98%. Its quality exceeds the analytical purity standards specified in GB/T678-2002 \"Ethanol (Anhydrous Ethanol) – Chemical Reagents\", as well as the standards set out in GB18350-2013 \"Denatured Fuel Ethanol\", meeting the quality requirements of all industries that utilize anhydrous ethanol ； Thirdly, the cost of consumption is low; new catalysts have been developed, achieving a conversion rate of over 99% and a selectivity as high as 99%. It is reported that this project offers significant economic benefits, with the ethanol produced costing an average of over 20% less than that produced using grain-based methods. Ethanol, as a clean energy source, is added to gasoline to produce ethanol-blended gasoline, and this practice has been widely adopted and promoted in countries such as the United States, Brazil, and Europe. The United States produces 42.66 million tons of fuel ethanol per year, while Brazil produces 17.44 million tons. Previously, China faced the issue of competition with domestic food production due to traditional food fermentation methods, which restricted the development of fuel ethanol; currently, the output used for fuel ethanol amounts to only 2.6 million tons. In recent years, breakthroughs in coal-to-ethanol technology have enabled its industrial development, and it is bound to become a clean energy source and the next focus of development in the coal chemical industry.