The coal based oxygen-containing compounds with various products, abundant downstream products and various production technologies are expected to be the main direction of high-end and differential development of modern coal chemical industry. In recent years, China has made a series of innovations and breakthroughs in the development of new fields of coal-based oxidation products, with rapid development momentum and hot situation. Zhou Zhuye, vice president of China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation, introduced the technical progress and research and development trend of coal-based oxidation products at the 2018 coal based oxidation products development forum held in Sanmenxia on December 27, 2018.

Coal to glycol: technology is maturing

Glycol is a large amount of basic chemical raw material with market capacity next to ethylene and propylene, and there is a large gap in domestic market. Since the first coal to glycol project, Tongliao Jinmei project, was put into operation in 2009, the production capacity has been growing steadily. In 2017, the production capacity of coal to glycol accounted for 31.87% of the national glycol production capacity.

With the rapid growth of production capacity, the technology of coal to glycol is becoming more and more mature. More than 10 domestic units have carried out the research and development of coal to glycol technology through syngas, and a number of scientific research results have emerged. Among them, the technology developers who master the core technology of industrialization include Fujian Institute of physical architecture of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Sinopec, Shanghai Pujing chemical industry, Hubei Huashuo and other units. The production units of Inner Mongolia Tongliao Jinmei, Henan Anyang Yongjin, Yangmei Shouyang, Xinhang energy and other enterprises have basically realized safe, stable, long-term and full load operation. At present, the process technology of coal to glycol is developing towards the direction of large-scale plant, low consumption, low emission and high efficiency; meanwhile, the product quality is also constantly optimized, and the downstream users' acceptance of coal to glycol is further improved; coal-based glycol has begun to be widely used in polyester chemical fiber industry.

Coal to ethanol: developing various routes

The production cost of coal to ethanol is significantly lower than that of bioethanol, which has strong competitiveness and broad development prospects. Under the favorable policy of promoting ethanol gasoline, coal to ethanol has become the most attractive technology development direction.

At present, there are three kinds of coal to ethanol process routes which are carrying out industrial demonstration and test in China.

Dalian Institute of chemical engineering of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Yanchang Petroleum Group jointly developed a complete set of process technology for synthesis of ethanol from syngas. The technology uses coal-based syngas as raw material, through methanol, dimethyl ether carbonylation and hydrogenation to synthesize ethanol. Yanchang Petroleum has built the world's first 100000 t / a syngas to ethanol industrial demonstration project. Dalian Institute of chemical engineering of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Jiangsu Sopu group The developed technology of acetic acid hydrogenation to ethanol organically integrates the efficient technology of acetic acid hydrogenation with the technology of molecular sieve membrane dehydration with low energy consumption. In April 2016, a 30000 T / a industrial demonstration unit of acetic acid hydrogenation to ethanol was built in Jiangsu Sopu group and successfully started in one time. Jupeng biology and Shanxi Lu'an Group cooperated to adopt the patented fermentation technology of Jupeng biology, through microbial fine The industrial tail gas will be efficiently, selectively and rapidly synthesized into fuel ethanol by bacteria. The 20000 t / a syngas bio fermentation ethanol demonstration project constructed by this technology will be completed and put into operation this year.

MMA / butyl butyrate: promoting product differentiation

Methyl methacrylate (MMA) is an indispensable monomer for the production of aerospace glass, optical fiber and other national strategic materials. At present, more than 50% of MMA in China needs to be imported. The gap is huge, which seriously restricts the development of related industries.

The Institute of process engineering of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Henan energy and chemical industry group have jointly developed the technology of MMA production from ethylene syngas. A thousand ton industrial test device has been built, which has successfully broken the foreign technological monopoly of MMA production from ethylene syngas.

Tianjin Bohua Yongli Chemical Co., Ltd. cooperates with Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences to develop the technology of one-step conversion of n-butyraldehyde to butyl butyrate. The reaction route is simple, the raw material cost and energy consumption are low, no water and other by-products are generated, and the atomic economy is high. It is expected to replace the traditional production process of butyl butyrate with high energy consumption and heavy pollution. At present, a set of 100 tons has been built/ Annual pilot plant.

The development of these new technologies will provide more technical routes for the development of downstream products of modern coal chemical industry.