Full domestic production of combined aromatic technology

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The aromatic compounds production complex operates smoothly, helping to address the weaknesses in Sinopec’s industrial chain. August 10, 2015, 08:22 – According to HuiCaoong Chemical Network, as of July 31, Sinopec’s Hainan Refining and Chemicals plant, which has a capacity of 600,000 tons per year for producing aromatic compounds, has been operating smoothly for 20 months in a row, with its overall performance reaching international leading levels. For industry insiders, an annual production capacity of 600,000 tons is practically insignificant when compared to the domestic annual demand of nearly 20 million tons” ； Yet this set of facilities is still regarded as \"an unprecedented success in China’s chemical industry history.\" Some experts even described its achievement as \"a thunderclap,\" as it filled the last gap in China’s petrochemical industry chain – aromatics – after decades of effort. The pain in the hearts of those in the petrochemical industry: “I just want to eat one peach, but I have to buy the entire orchard.” Wu Wei, deputy chief engineer at Sinopec’s Research Institute of Petrochemistry, explained that there are around 8 million types of organic chemicals in the world, and more than 30% of them require the use of aromatic hydrocarbons ； Over 40% is also used for ethylene, and together these two account for more than 80%; \"thus, ethylene and aromatics are the two main basic raw materials, and their technological capabilities and production capacity indicate the level of a **petrochemical industry\".\" As the two most important components of the modern petrochemical industry chain, ethylene and aromatics exhibit a severe imbalance in their development level in China: ethylene production capacity soared from just 459,000 tons per year in 1978 to over 17 million tons per year by 2014, pushing China’s ranking from 10th to 2nd in the world. During the same period, the country’s technical level also rapidly rose to the world’s advanced ranks. Through the process of \"introduction, digestion and absorption, integrated innovation, and independent innovation,\" a range of core proprietary technologies and supporting technologies were developed. Adhering to the principle of giving equal emphasis to domestic and international process technologies while prioritizing the use of domestic equipment, the proportion of domestically produced equipment for ethylene production exceeded 80%. A series of technologies such as large-scale ethylene cracking furnaces, polypropylene, acrylonitrile, catalytic thermal cracking of heavy feedstocks, and SBS elastomers were successfully developed. The technology for million-ton-class ethylene cracking gas compressors has reached world-class levels, while the technologies related to the three key reagents are largely based domestically and have reached or come close to world-class standards ； The construction of large-scale ethylene plants has shifted from the import of complete sets of equipment to the import only of process packages and some key equipment. It has also changed from foreign-led general contracting to domestic design, procurement, and construction. China now possesses the capability to build million-ton-class ethylene plants using its own technologies, and it has developed ethylene industry clusters in the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, and the Bohai Bay region – these clusters rank among the best in the world. Previously, only the UOP company in the United States and the IFP company in France possessed the complete technology for aromatics processing worldwide, resulting in a monopoly in the technology market. There were extremely high technical barriers, and the costs associated with technology licensing, as well as specialized adsorbents and catalysts, were very high. Sun Lili, general manager of Sinopec Engineering Construction Company, recalled that in 1975, when a plant for producing 27,000 tons per year of p-xylene (abbreviated as PX) was introduced, the technical costs amounted to over 4 million US dollars ； At present, for a PX production facility with an annual output of 600,000 tons, the technology licensing fee amounts to hundreds of millions of yuan, while the cost of imported adsorbents is even higher, at 200 million to 300 million yuan. This situation of \"wanting to eat just one peach but having to buy the entire orchard\" has become a great pain for the employees of Sinopec. “We must keep petrochemical foundations such as aromatics in our own hands and not be controlled by others. ”Sun Lili emphasized. She explained that currently, the global annual consumption of aromatics for industrial use is around 120 million tons, with more than 130 aromatics production plants located in developed countries and regions such as the United States, Europe, Japan, and South Korea. PX is the most widely used and representative aromatic compound, with a rich downstream industrial chain. In 2014, China’s PX consumption was around 20 million tons. The fibers produced from PX are equivalent to cotton grown on approximately 230 million mu of land, which holds irreplaceable strategic significance for resolving the conflict over land between grain cultivation and cotton production and for maintaining the \"red line\" of 1.8 billion mu of arable land. Aromatics are also widely used in the production of polyester for non-fibrous applications, providing safe, reliable, lightweight, and recyclable polyester bottle packaging for daily use, thereby enabling sustainable development through energy savings and cost reduction. At the same time, aromatic hydrocarbons can also be used to produce polyamide fibers with high strength, low density, and good wear resistance (i.e., aramids), which are primarily used in the manufacture of tire cords, rubber reinforcement materials, special ropes, as well as in military and aerospace applications. They are widely utilized in important fields such as automobiles, machinery and electronics, aerospace, and military industry. For such an important raw material, \"if you don’t produce it yourself, others will have the upper hand,\" said Sun Lili. China is currently the world’s largest consumer of PX, with an average annual growth rate of over 20% over the past 15 years. However, due to a chronic shortage in domestic production and reliance on imports, around 10 million tons were imported in 2014, accounting for about half of total consumption; the import value was approximately 12.6 billion dollars, 75% of which came from developed countries such as South Korea, Japan, and the United States. While domestic citizens protest against the development of the PX industry, foreign countries are building new PX plants targeting the Chinese market. Industry experts believe it is not impossible that foreign conglomerates could create public opinion in China to incite the public to resist PX projects. “In the face of public concerns, it is necessary to present facts and reasoning from a scientific perspective, as well as to analyze the root causes of the problems from a social standpoint, conducting a scientific and rational analysis so that the public can understand the causes and consequences of these issues. Over 40 years and through the efforts of several generations, many \"world records\" have been established. Aromatic hydrocarbon technology packages are high-end technologies with complex systems and high technical demands; they feature a high degree of integration and present great challenges in development, \"and certainly cannot be achieved in just one day.\" Xie Zaiku, director of the Sinopec Science and Technology Department, said that it took more than 40 years and the efforts of several generations to achieve success. He explained that PX technology is the core component of the aromatic hydrocarbons technology package. Most of the PX units introduced in China earlier were sourced from the U.S. company UOP. During the development of our applications, this American company paid close attention to intellectual property issues, which prompted our own R&D personnel to attach great importance to intellectual property throughout the entire development process, resulting in the creation of aromatic hydrocarbon technologies that feature independent innovation and clear property rights. In 2004, when domestic PX adsorbents were first used industrially in the plant introduced by Qilu Petrochemical, several rounds of tough business negotiations were held due to engineering and technical barriers; only after that did the domestic adsorbents finally find application in that aromatics complex. All their performance indicators met or exceeded those of imported adsorbents, and their price was one-third lower than that of imported ones. The success in localizing adsorbents has inspired Sinopec’s ambition to develop its own complete set of aromatic hydrocarbon technologies. Our aromatic hydrocarbons technology suite saw the construction of a 30,000-ton/year industrial pilot plant at Yangzi Petrochemical in 2011; by the end of 2013, it was applied in a large-scale 600,000-ton/year PX project at Hainan Refining & Chemical. The scale of this facility represented the highest processing capacity for such a setup, and the plant succeeded in its first trial run, operating steadily for nearly 20 months. It set numerous world records: the energy consumption per ton of product was only 75% of that of similar advanced international technologies, the cost per ton of product was 6% lower than the international advanced level, and the purity of the products reached over 99.8%. The overall technology is at the international leading level. Xie Zaiqu emphasized that, in response to the societal panic stemming from the stigmatization of PX, Hainan Refining & Chemical has, since the inception of the project, set \"zero pollution, zero leaks, zero emissions, and intrinsic safety\" as key construction goals. By focusing on the source of issues and implementing intelligent control measures, it ensures \"no emissions in the air, no leaks on the surface, and no seepage underground\", thereby achieving intrinsic safety for the facilities and sustainable, clean production, and turning the plant into a garden-like facility. The sulfur dioxide content in the flue gas is as low as 20 milligrams per standard cubic meter, which is far below the **Class 1 emission standards and represents a level that is among the best in the world ； An innovative and efficient heating furnace integration technology that reduces annual emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by 12,000 tons compared to international advanced levels ； The pioneering energy cascade utilization technology not only significantly reduces the energy consumption of the device, but also enables it to shift from consuming electricity externally to generating electricity for external use, with 70,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity being generated daily ； By innovatively replacing physical adsorption with catalytic reactions, the catalyst’s lifespan is significantly extended, and solid waste emissions are reduced by 98%. This approach achieves substantial energy and emission savings, meeting the requirements for sustainable resource and environmental development.