
AsianScientist (Mar. 27, 2017) – The world’s first plant capable of producing ethanol from coal has been stably operating in China for the last two months, according to an announcement by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The plant, launched by Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum Group, began production in January with capacity of 100,000 metric tons of anhydrous ethanol per year. Based on this plant, a factory with capacity of one million metric tons per year would be built by 2020, said Professor Liu Zhongmin, deputy director of the DICP.
The seven million metric tons of ethanol produced in China in 2015 was not enough to satisfy the country’s industrial and energy needs. Furthermore, only one third of ethanol—about 2.5 million metric tons—was used for fuel ethanol.
At present, most of the ethanol in the world is produced by fermentation using food crops as a raw material, namely corn in US and sugarcane in Brazil. However, this method was not deemed suitable for China because of its massive population and limited arable land. In view of China’s abundant coal resources, the country has pursued technology to synthesize ethanol from coal to safeguard their energy and food security.
Ethanol is used as a green fuel and gasoline additive. Gasoline with ten percent ethanol could reduce polluting emissions by about a third. However, scientists have until now been unable to synthesize ethanol from fossil fuels. The new method uses cheap catalysts to combine dimethyl ether and methyl acetate into anhydrous ethanol, but no further details were given.
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Source: Chinese Academy of Sciences; Photo: Liu Wansheng.
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