Chinese Academy Announces Breakthrough Coal-Oil Substitution Technology

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--A new coal-chemical industrial process has been developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Dalian Institute of Physics for use in industrial manufacturing, the academy recently announced.

The institute has signed a contract with the Shenhua Group, a large-scale state-owned coal enterprise, regarding a 1.8 million-ton-per-annum (TPA) methanol processing and 600,000-TPA olefin production line in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Construction for the production line has already begun in Baotou City. One month before the project in Inner Mongolia, a 200,000-TPA coal methanol to olefin (DMTO) project was launched in Shaanxi Province's Yunlin City, marking the beginning of Chinese-owned DMTO technology going into commercial production.

As early as in the 1980s, the academy's institute established a DMTO research committee. After years of research, the institute formulated a set of its own copyrighted patents and technologies. In 2004, with support from the Shaanxi provincial government, the institute entered into cooperation with Shaanxi Xinxing Coal Chemical Technology Development Company and Luoyang Petrochemical Engineering Company to construct a 16,700-TPA methanol-processing pilot project for commercial production. In February 2006, all production steps were safely linked together. The first trial run was successful. After inspection by expert committee appointed by the National Development and Reform Commission, the project was appraised to have reached an internationally advanced level.

Experts say that by 2010, the ethylene shortage in China will still exceed 10 million tons. Every million ton of ethylene and propylene produced from coal-based ethanol will save the consumption of several million tons of naphtha.

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