Wuhan Kaidi 10,000-ton biomass oil production (gasification-FT synthesis route)

Thread Content

This post was last edited by liaifeng on 2018-9-4 21:16. On the morning of January 20, 2013, with the successful lighting of three bio-oil torches, the Sunneng Kaidi Biomass Fuel and Gas Plant was officially put into operation in Wuhan Future Science and Technology City. It will process agricultural and forestry waste such as straw, tree branches, and grain husks to produce 10,000 tons of aviation fuel, gasoline, and diesel each year. This is the world’s first production line for 10,000-tonne-scale biomass fuel. Unlike Sinopec, which uses \"gutter oil\" as raw material to produce bio-fuel products, CDI’s biomass-to-oil process utilizes materials such as straw and waste wood. Technologies such as gasification and pyrolysis as well as Fischer-Tropsch synthesis are employed in this process. A biomass-to-oil facility with an annual production capacity of 300,000 tons requires more than 1 million tons of biomass raw materials per year. The products generated by such facilities include aviation kerosene (about 20%), gasoline and diesel (about 60–70%), and paraffin (10–20%). At present, the companies with strong R&D capabilities in global non-food biomass oil production technologies are mainly Rentech.inc from the United States, Collin Company (invested by Shell), and the Caidi Group. Kaidi Group was the first to achieve large-scale commercial production, and it was also the first in the world to register over 80 core patents related to biomass oil production technologies. In our country, there are only three private enterprises that possess **key laboratories**: Huawei in the field of communications, the **key laboratory for coal-based low-carbon energy** run by XinAo, and the **key laboratory for biomass thermochemical technology** affiliated with the Kaidi Research Institute. Since 2004, Sunlight Kaidi New Energy Group has independently developed technologies for the chemical thermal decomposition of biomass energy and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, to produce highly clean and high-quality aviation kerosene, gasoline, and diesel. Over a period of more than 8 years, Kaidi invested over 500 million yuan in research and development. Leveraging the **Key Laboratory of Biomass Thermochemical Technology**, it progressed from small-scale experiments producing hundreds of tons of liquid fuel per year and numerical simulations at the thousand-ton level, to the establishment of commercial demonstration projects capable of producing tens of thousands of tons per year. As a result, it has obtained over 200 patents and more than 3,000 specialized technologies. The ideal biomass feedstock should, first, be available in large quantities, and second, have an appropriate level of dryness. Therefore, biomass oil production projects need to take into account the resource endowments of each region. In the future, the source of raw materials will mainly be fast-growing forest lands with a high degree of concentration. Regions in the northeast with abundant biomass resources, such as Heilongjiang and Jilin, as well as provinces like Hunan, Hubei, and Guangxi, will all serve as key hubs for the development of the biomass-based oil production industry as planned. Take Guangxi for example; there are many biological raw materials suitable for oil refining in this region, and by receiving palm shells and sugarcane bagasse from Malaysia, it is easy to address the issue of raw material supply. The Tieshangang Industrial Zone project in Beihai, Guangxi is planned to produce 2 million tons of biomass synthetic oil and 2 million tons of biomass potassium fertilizer per year. The first phase of the project involves two production lines for synthetic oil with a capacity of 300,000 tons each, as well as production of 400,000 tons of potassium fertilizer; currently, this project has received approval for implementation. Kaidi plans to **import palm oil processing waste from Southeast Asia**, while Jinsha River Venture Capital is responsible for securing forestry resources from Guangxi in order to further diversify fuel supply sources. Another example is the Heilongjiang region, where there are abundant resources such as corn stalks and timber; the neighboring Russian border areas also produce millions of tons of wood processing waste each year. Preliminary estimates suggest that the cost of biomass oil is around 7,000 yuan per ton. The investment scale in the biomass oil production industry is relatively large; for a typical project with an annual production capacity of 300,000 tons, the total investment amounts to around 4.5 billion yuan. For the biomass oil production industry to reach a certain scale at a rapid pace, financial support under policy guidance is essential; securing the capital necessary for such oil production projects is a prerequisite and key factor for their success. Furthermore, raw material supply is also the key to the success or failure of the biomass industry; by resolving the bottleneck in forestry financing, the raw material issue is essentially solved as well. Kaidi Group currently owns over 10 million mu of forest land, and it plans to further increase the scale of forest land transfer in order to provide the biomass industry with sufficient raw materials. According to Lai Xiaomin, chairman of China Huarong Asset Management Co., Ltd., Huarong is the largest shareholder of Kaidi Sunshine, having invested 2 billion yuan! Huarong is a state-owned enterprise, while Kaidi is a private enterprise. **A name was given to Sunlight Kaidi’s biomass oil: “Zhongxin Oil”. Currently, it is produced by Sinopec, CNPC, CNOOC, as well as Hubei Kaidi. The 36 biomass power plants owned by the Kaidi Group across the country consumed over 9 million tons of agricultural and forestry waste in 2014, generated 5.3 billion kWh of electricity, and earned profits of 270 million yuan, thus achieving a considerable scale. Biomass power generation falls under the category of new energy as explicitly defined by the Renewable Energy Law; in principle, the power grid accepts 100% of biomass power generated, with an on-grid electricity price of 0.75 yuan/Kwh. The biggest bottleneck for biomass power generation remains the shortage of raw materials. The biomass power plants that Kaidi Group will build in the future will all utilize third-generation technology, enabling an energy conversion rate of around 50%, whereas the energy conversion rate of second-generation biomass power plants is only about 34%. In 1992, Chen Yilong, who was teaching at Wuhan University of Water Resources and Electric Power, along with several colleagues, invented a technology to address the problem of incomplete combustion of coal in power plants. The following year, Wuhan Kaidi Power Co., Ltd. was established through a targeted fundraising approach, initiated by Kaidi Technology Development Company of Wuhan University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Beijing Zhonglian Power Chemistry Company, Wuhan University of Water Resources and Electric Power, and Wuhan East Lake High-Tech Entrepreneurship Center. The total share capital of the company was 30.6 million shares. Chen Yilong initially served as the general manager of Kaidi Power, and has been the company’s chairman since 1997, for a total of 16 years to date. In September 1999, Chen Yilong personally led Kaidi Power to go public on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Kaidi Power began its operations with flue gas desulfurization in coal-fired power plants. This company, which was already the leader in the desulfurization industry in China, saw Chen Yilong suddenly sell off its core desulfurization business in 2006 and enter the then little-understood biomass energy sector, with the aim of turning Kaidi Power into a leader in biomass power generation in the country.