CAS DICP starts 1000 t biomass to ethylene glycol pilot plant

http://en.people.cn/n3/2024/1017/c90000-20230829.html

https://www.cas.cn/syky/202410/t20241014_5035955.shtml

A “Thousand-ton Biomass Catalytic Conversion to Ethylene Glycol Pilot Technology” was jointly developed by the CAS Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics and Zhongke Baiyijin (Zhengzhou) New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. This technology pioneers a new route for the one-step catalytic conversion of biomass sugar to ethylene glycol.

Ethylene glycol is an important bulk energy chemical with an annual global consumption of more than 30 million tons. It is mainly used in synthetic polyester fibers, polyester bottle flakes, antifreeze, coatings, medicines and other fields. my country is a major producer and consumer of ethylene glycol, with an annual consumption of more than 20 million tons. However, ethylene glycol mainly uses petroleum ethylene or coal as raw materials, and has disadvantages such as non-renewable raw materials, large carbon dioxide emissions, and high energy consumption. It is urgent to develop green ethylene glycol production technology.

According to reports, in 2008, the team of Academician Zhang Tao of Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics pioneered a new reaction for direct catalytic conversion of cellulose to ethylene glycol in the world, providing a new way for the production of bio-based ethylene glycol. In 2019, the team cooperated with Zhongke Baiyijin Company and others to carry out the “Thousand-ton Biomass Catalytic Conversion to Ethylene Glycol Pilot Project”, and built the world’s first thousand-ton biomass catalytic conversion to ethylene glycol unit in Puyang, Henan in early 2022. In June of the same year, the first feed was put into production, and the process flow was opened up at one time, and industrial-grade biomass ethylene glycol products were obtained. Subsequently, the project team carried out technical transformation and upgrading of the device process and completed a 72-hour on-site assessment. The results showed that the selectivity of ethylene glycol products was close to 80%, the product separation purity reached 99.9%, and the ultraviolet transmittance reached the national standard for polyester-grade ethylene glycol. The pilot operation results laid the foundation for the 10,000-ton industrial application of biomass catalytic conversion to ethylene glycol technology.

At present, the ethylene glycol products produced by this technology have been launched on the market for the production of bio-based polyester (PET), all-bio-based furan plastics (PEF), flavors and fragrances, etc.

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