【Ten Years of Great Progress in Chemical Technology】30,000 tons/year industrial demonstration plant for ethanol production via acetic acid hydrogenation, 2016–2017

Thread Content

Ten years of rapid development in chemical technology – praise for China’s prosperity and strength. This is just a starting point; more participation from everyone will make things even more lively. Haichuan becomes even better with your involvement; we welcome everyone to join in the forum discussions. Be careful with fire as the heat increases in July. --------------------------------------------- In May 2016, the 30,000-ton/year industrial demonstration plant for the production of ethanol via acetic acid hydrogenation, designed and constructed by China Wuhuan Engineering Company using catalytic technology from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as molecular sieve membrane dehydration technology, started operating successfully on its first attempt at Jiangsu Supor (Group) Co., Ltd., running steadily thereafter. As of the early hours of May 6, the device had been operating continuously and stably for 8 days, with the purity of the anhydrous ethanol produced reaching 99.6%, which is higher than the **standards for industrial ethanol in China. Since 2008, as domestic enterprises have gradually mastered the relevant technologies for acetic acid production, acetic acid has become an important coal chemical product in China. With the rapid development of the industry, there has been a rapid surplus in acetic acid production capacity, resulting in low prices. China’s acetic acid production capacity has exceeded 10 million tons per year, yet the traditional downstream industries for acetic acid are weak; demand for downstream products such as acetates, vinyl acetate, terephthalic acid, and acetic anhydride is growing slowly, making it urgent to develop new downstream products. With technological advancements and changes in market conditions, the hydrogenation of acetic acid to produce ethanol has become one of the options. Ethanol is not only a basic raw material in organic chemical industry and an important solvent, but also an ideal high-octane fuel for vehicles as well as a additive. With the increasing demands for environmental quality, developing alcohol-based fuels and adding ethanol to gasoline have become one of the main solutions to improve automotive fuels. The market for ethanol products is vast, with high demand. Our country has a large population, insufficient arable land, limited food supplies, relatively scarce oil resources, while coal resources are relatively abundant. Replacing the traditional food fermentation route with the technology of producing ethanol from coal through acetic acid hydrogenation holds significant strategic importance for reducing the industrial consumption of food in China, alleviating the shortage of petroleum resources, and ensuring the country’s energy security. The hydrogenation of acetic acid to produce ethanol is the core step in the technology for converting coal into ethanol via methanol and acetic acid. Due to the azeotropy between ethanol and water, since the 1980s, with the development of membrane separation technology, pervaporation and vapor permeation techniques have been applied to the industrial production of anhydrous ethanol. The key to pervaporation and vapor permeation technologies lies in the development of high-performance separation membranes. Molecular sieve membranes, with their regular pore structure, unique selective adsorption properties, as well as resistance to high temperatures and organic solvents, represent an advanced technology for the dehydration of ethanol aqueous solutions with low energy consumption. The acetic acid hydrogenation technology demonstrated here is an industrial technology that integrates highly efficient acetic acid hydrogenation technology with low-energy molecular sieve membrane dehydration technology. The industrial demonstration project for the production of ethanol via acetic acid hydrogenation is a sub-project under the strategic pilot science and technology program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, titled “Key Technologies and Demonstrations for the Clean and Efficient Hierarchical Utilization of Low-Rank Coal”. Following the success of this trial run with the feedstock, it will not only generate significant economic benefits for the enterprise but also provide critical technical support and experience for the future construction, production, and operation of large-scale industrial facilities.