The prospect of coal-based ethanol industrialization is promising

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China's "14th Five-Year Plan and 2035 Long-term Goals Outline" points out that we should promote the energy revolution, build a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system, and improve the ability to guarantee energy supply. The characteristics of China's resource endowments rich in coal, poor oil and gas determine that new coal chemicals such as coal-based ethanol conform to the direction of China's energy structure transformation and are one of the important guarantees of national energy security.

The comprehensive advantages are outstanding

Ethanol is an organic compound, commonly known as alcohol, that can be made by a variety of methods. Before 2000, the production of medicine, industry and edible alcohol all adopted the fermentation method, that is, grain fermentation production. At that time, 4-5 kilotons of grain were needed to produce 1,000 tons of ethanol, which was added to gasoline at a rate of 10%. Ethanol is recognized as an environmentally friendly, clean and high-quality additive in the world, and the United States and Brazil are promoting ethanol gasoline and are socially recognized.

In September 2017, with the consent of the State Council, the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration and other 15 departments jointly issued the Implementation Plan on Expanding the Production of Biofuel Ethanol and Promoting the Use of Vehicle Ethanol Gasoline to promote biofuel ethanol. Later, in 7 provinces (cities) independent closed operation, the implementation of fixed-point production, targeted circulation, price locking, closed sales, at the same time, in order to encourage production, the government also implemented a fixed subsidy policy. However, after 2018, with the cancellation of subsidies, the cost of bio-made ethanol has increased, and the factories that produce ethanol have basically no profit or even loss. Moreover, the raw materials for biological ethanol are mainly corn and cassava, and there is a shortage of raw materials after the consumption of aged grains.

At present, fuel ethanol has a market gap of at least 10 million tons in China. Moreover, ethanol downstream derivatives are numerous, mainly ethylene, acetaldehyde, acetate, ethylamine, acetate, ethylbenzene, etc., with the continuous maturity of downstream product process technology, ethanol as raw material production of chemicals demand continues to increase, will become a new market growth point, it is expected that the future downstream products demand for ethanol is about 20 million tons per year.

Based on China's energy resource endowments rich in coal, poor oil and gas, the construction of high-end energy and chemical bases and the independent development of coal-based ethanol process technology are not only the needs of social development, but also the products of chemical technology development to a certain stage. Coal-based ethanol, whether as fuel ethanol or as a chemical raw material, can reduce the country's dependence on oil and help improve energy security. Moreover, coal-based ethanol can replace the grain method ethanol can improve the level of food security, according to the grain method ethanol in the industry of 4 million tons per year, after being replaced by coal-based ethanol, at least 12 million tons of grain can be saved per year. At the same time, the unit cost of coal-based ethanol is about 2,000 yuan lower than that of biological ethanol, which can create good economic benefits.

Accelerate capacity expansion demonstrations

Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum Group through the development of strong cooperation between industry, education and research, after years of efforts, the world's first syngas, methanol to anhydrous ethanol technology (DMTE), relying on the technology to build the world's first set of 100,000 tons / year coal-based ethanol industry demonstration device was built in Xinghua, Shaanxi at the end of 2016, and in January 2017 to produce qualified absolute ethanol products, the purity of 99.71%.

DMTE technology is that the raw coal is gasified, transformed and purified into syngas, part of which is used to produce methanol, and part of which is separated from CO and H2 by a gas separation device. After methanol is dehydrated, dimethyl ether is formed, and dimethyl ether is reacted with CO carbonylation to form methyl acetate, and methyl acetate is hydrogenated to form ethanol. This technology replaces the traditional process route of grain fermentation and provides a new feasible path for chemical production of ethanol.

The 100,000 tons/year coal-based ethanol project was successfully started in January 2017 and has been running stably so far. The project proved the viability of the DMTE technical route and provided field data for the engineering scale-up of the technology. At the same time, since the operation of the project, a large number of transformations have been carried out, and various technical problems and engineering problems have been solved, which has played an industrial demonstration role. Since the beginning of 2020, the monthly net profit of the project is more than 10 million yuan, which has won benefits for the enterprise, for this reason, Shaanxi Xinghua Co., Ltd. (Yanchang Petroleum Group, Xinghua Group is a shareholder) has also planned a second set of 100,000 tons / year ethanol plant in the factory area, and has completed the basic engineering design and is scheduled to be put into production in 2022.

At the same time, on June 6, 2020, the 500,000 tons/year coal-based ethanol project of Yanchang Petroleum Yushen Energy Chemical Company laid the foundation stone in Yulin Energy Heavy Chemical Industry Base. As one of the top ten benchmark energy projects in Yulin, the project is the first set of re-enlarged industrialized devices after the successful commissioning of the Xinghua 100,000 tons/year coal-based ethanol project in 2017, which has an important demonstration and leading role in the industry.

The 500,000 tons/year coal-based ethanol project still takes the DMTE technology jointly researched and developed by the Dalian Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Yanchang Petroleum as the core process technology, with a total investment of about 7 billion yuan, an annual output of 500,000 tons of absolute ethanol, an annual sales income of more than 3.5 billion yuan, an average annual net profit of more than 1 billion yuan, and 1,000 jobs. Up to now, the project has completed 64.95% of the concrete pouring, 60% of the water supply and drainage pipelines, and 19.25% of the steel structure installation. Process equipment arrives and begins installation.

DMTE technical features include: the use of non-precious metal catalysts, small corrosiveness of the medium, the device is mostly ordinary materials, the reaction target product yield is high, low material consumption, the device "three wastes" emissions are small, green environmental protection, low cost. In contrast, the ethanol industry synthesis technology route and syngas one-step method of ethanol, acetic acid hydrogenation to ethanol, ethyl acetate hydrogenic acid hydrogenation to ethanol have the following problems: the need to use precious metal catalysts; the medium is easy to corrode, the material requirements are high; the cost is high. Therefore, Yushen energy 500,000 tons / year coal-based ethanol project is a real sense of coal to ethanol plant-wide project, with an important leading role. Beijing Petrochemical Engineering Co., Ltd. (BPE), as an engineering cooperation unit of DMTE technology, is optimizing the design and creating high-quality projects.

Promote technology and equipment upgrades

In recent years, with the dual impact of the global economic downturn and the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the domestic thermal coal market is sluggish, and the international oil price continues to run at a high level, requiring China to pay more attention to the efficient use of coal, prompting the coal chemical industry to gradually become stronger, and various new coal chemical projects such as coal-to-ethanol, coal-to-aromatic hydrocarbons, and coal-to-natural gas continue to emerge and develop. At the same time, as the epidemic swept the world, the demand for a series of products such as masks, disinfectants, and protective clothing has soared, and from the perspective of chemical industry, whether masks or disinfectants, they are inseparable from the supply of raw materials for petroleum and coal chemicals. In addition, with the continuous development of social economy, energy and chemical industry are also accelerating recovery.

In terms of policy, concepts such as "Internet +" and "smart energy" are proposed, which puts forward the possibility for the next development of energy and chemical industry. In May 2020, the State Council issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Formation of a New Pattern of The Great Development of the Western Region in the New Era", which proposes to optimize the structure of coal production and consumption, promote clean coal production and intelligent and efficient mining, actively promote the cascade utilization of coal grading and quality, and steadily carry out upgrading demonstrations such as coal-to-oil, coal-to-gas, and coal-to-olefins. In April 2021, the National Energy Administration issued the "2021 Energy Work Guidance", revealing that it is necessary to study and formulate key technology research plans for the clean and efficient use of coal, and set up special key points to promote.

This will effectively promote the 500,000 tons /year coal-based ethanol project project of Yushen energy to be fully rolled out and implemented this year, marking that China has the ability to design and build large-scale coal-based ethanol projects and master its core technology. The project will not only form a technological leading edge in the field of coal chemical industry at home and abroad, but also drive the development of the entire industry and affect the downstream enterprises and the production of additional products in the industrial chain. For example, the production pattern of some methanol plants and dimethyl ether plants has been changed, the product scheme has been optimized, and the production capacity has been released, and it is expected that the loss-reducing production capacity enterprises will be transformed into enterprises with new production capacity and new products.

At the same time, the project has opened up a new mechanism for the research and development, service, production, construction and management of the coal chemical industry, opened up a new model of joint production and joint research of ethanol products by many units, supplemented the chain and improved the economy, overcome many technical difficulties and "card neck" problems, obtained valuable research and development experience, and enhanced the overall strength of the technical team.

In general, although China has made some major breakthroughs in the field of new coal chemical industry in recent years, it does not fully meet the conditions for ultra-large-scale industrialization, the level of system integration and pollution control technology still needs to be improved, production stability and economy need to be verified, industry standards and market systems need to be improved, and the industry as a whole is still in the stage of upgrading and demonstration. Through the construction of the Yushen Energy 500,000 tons / year coal-based ethanol project, it will improve the technology of gas purification, large-scale low-pressure synthesis and other technologies and their major equipment levels, and effectively promote the formation of new processes and new technology production standards.

(The author is a special researcher of the Macroeconomic Research Institute of the Economic Observer)

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