The world's largest ethanol plant starts trial production
The 600,000-ton/year ethanol production plant built by Huaibei Mining Group Carbon Xin Technology Co., Ltd. started trial production and produced qualified anhydrous ethanol. The production capacity of this unit is the largest of its kind in the world.
According to reports, the device adopts the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Yanchang Petroleum Group Co., Ltd. to develop the independent technology, the main raw material methanol from coke oven gas, further converted into ethanol, not only greatly improve the added value of the product, but also for steel, energy, environment and other industries low-carbon integration development provides a feasible way. Ethanol is recognized as an excellent gasoline additive in the world and an important basic chemical. It can partially replace ethylene as a chemical raw material and can be easily converted into ethylene. Since traditional ethanol production involves competing with people for food, the large-scale production of non-grain ethanol is of great significance for ensuring food security, energy security and chemical industry chain and supply chain security in China.
The team of Liu Zhongmin, Academician of Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has been making continuous efforts on this track since 2010, and proposed the route of synthesizing anhydrous ethanol (DMTE) from synthesis gas as raw material through dimethyl ether carbonylation and methyl acetate hydrogenation. Using non-precious metal catalyst, this route can realize large-scale ethanol production from coal, natural gas or steel plant gas, which has unique environment-friendly characteristics. In 2017, Dalian Chemical Institute cooperated with Yanchang Petroleum Group Company to develop DMTE process technology, and completed the world's first 100,000 tons/year methanol to ethanol by dimethyl ether carbonylation industrial demonstration project.
Subsequently, Academician Liu Zhongmin's team continued to iterate on technology, upgrade the catalyst and optimize the reaction process, further improving the technical indicators and laying the foundation for large-scale industrialization.
Academician Liu Zhongmin said that the trial production of 600,000-ton/year ethanol production unit of Huaibei Mining Group Carbon Xin Company has verified the advanced nature and reliability of DMTE technology, and promoted the large-scale application of DMTE technology.
According to reports, up to now, DMTE technology has signed 13 sets of industrial plant technology implementation licensing contracts, involving ethanol production capacity of 3.95 million tons.
DMTE technology may provide opportunities for low-carbon development of high-carbon industries
At a media conference held on the same day, Liu Zhongmin, academician of Dalian Institute of Chemical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that DMTE technology will become a viable way to integrate the low-carbon development of steel, coking and energy industries.
Academician Liu Zhongmin said that China's resources are characterized by rich coal, poor oil and less gas, while steel, coking and other industries are developed. Therefore, the integrated development of coal chemical industry, steel, coking and other industries has become a major issue involving China's energy security, the diversified development of steel coke and other industries and the reduction of carbon emissions. Especially from the perspective of atomic economy, the coal chemical route is easier to synthesize oxygen-containing compounds, that is, alcohols, ethers, acids and other products, and ethanol is a suitable target product. If the use of coal chemical synthesis gas, coke oven tail gas and steel exhaust gas to produce ethanol, the problem of fuel ethanol shortage in China will be solved, coal chemical industry, steel industry and coking industry will get more green development opportunities.
For the characteristics of DMTE technology, Academician Liu Zhongmin introduced that the technology uses molecular sieve catalyst rather than expensive metal catalyst, adopts a heterogeneous catalytic system, the separation of reaction products is simple, the reaction system is non-corrosive, the material requirements of the equipment are reduced, and the products methyl acetate and ethanol are bulk chemicals. These characteristics give DMTE technology good economy.
It is estimated that the cost of producing ethanol by grain fermentation in China is about 6500 yuan/ton, while the cost of DMTE method is only about 4500 yuan/ton. In addition, based on methyl acetate and ethanol, ethyl acetate, acrylic ester and other high value-added fine chemicals can be produced. Therefore, the technology can effectively improve the economy of methanol and dimethyl ester industries.
