Cooperation between CAS and Local Authorities

First Step to Produce LNG from Coke Oven Gas on Industrial Scale

The successful production trial run of the first set of coke oven gas comprehensive utilization projects declares a significant breakthrough in the whole technology of separating and liquefying LNG from coke oven gas. The project to separate and liquefy 120 million m3/year LNG production from coke oven gas is constructed by Inner Mongolia Hengkun Chemical Industry Co., Ltd., which is a subsidiary company of the Xinkuang Inner Mongolia Energy Co., Ltd. The liquefaction and separation technology of LNG from coke oven gas is using mixed refrigerant cycle (MRC) technology package, which is provided by the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, CAS. Coke oven gas is one of the major by-product of the coking industry. About 430 m3 coke oven gas will be generated while refining one ton of coke. Half of the gas is transferred back to the oven for combustion, about 200 m3 will be discharged into the atmosphere or sent for combustion emission (commonly known as the "sky lanterns”) if there isn't any recovery device. The amount of coke oven gas generation in Shanxi Province during one year is close to double transmission capacity of the West-East Gas Pipeline Project. Therefore to carry out the project has many advantages in areas of social and economic benefits, and promotion of economic development. The coking park of the Inner Mongolia HengKun Chemical Co., Ltd. is planned to construct 500 tons/year of hard coke project, 600,000 tons/year of coal tar processing project and 300,000 tons/year of coke oven gas comprehensive utilization project. The project is the first phase with an annual output of 1.3 million tons/year hard coke and 120 million m3/year LNG products. As the natural gas in coke oven gas can be separated and liquefied, and further the production is increased by 30 percent after the implementation of the project, reducing annual gas emissions of 32 million standard cubic meters, saving 100,000 tons of standard coal.

New Technology Helps with Utilization of Low-grade Iron Ore Reserve

China is now facing severe shortage of iron ore resources, e.g. over 740 million tons of iron ore were imported from abroad in 2012. The high dependence of iron ore on overseas resources has caused huge economic loss and endangered the sustainable development of the Chinese iron and steel industry, primarily due to the fact that the world iron ore market is monopolized by several foreign companies. The only way to break the monopoly is to utilize, through technological innovation, the huge amount of low grade iron ore reserve (over 20 billion tons) of China, which cannot be utilized by current-state-of-the-art processes. The Institute of Process Engineering (IPE) has been working on high-efficient utilization of low grade complex iron ore since 1960s. In recent years, the topic was reinvestigated to meet the increasing demands from industries, where the reaction kinetics, scale up principles for reactor design, process intensification, optimization and integration of the roasting system have been systematically investigated. Key technologies like pre-heating of raw powder, feeding and discharging, heat recovery of the off gas, cooling of the as-roasted product, etc. have also been developed. Based on these investigations, four Chinese invention patents have been applied, two of which have obtained patent licenses as authorized by the State Property Office. Through close cooperation with our partner, the Qujing Yuegang Iron & Steel Group of Yunnan province, a pilot plant of 100,000 t/a has been successfully established and commissioned. The pilot plant has realized long-time and stable operation since the end of 2012, which demonstrated that limonite with Fe content of 35% can be upgraded to iron ore concentrate of above 57% Fe, with a recovery rate greater than 90%. The newly developed roasting technology has greatly enhanced the roasting efficiency, e.g. the roasting temperature is reduced from 800-900 oC of conventional technologies to ~550°C. As a result, the energy consumption is reduced by 30% as compared with conventional technologies. The technology has attracted wide-spread interests from iron ore beneficiation enterprises, not only in China, but also India. IPE has already decided to cooperate with the Jiutai Group as the partner to apply the technology, where a company with registered capital of 50 million RMB.

New Generation of AC-LED Lighting Technology

AC-LED lighting Technology, a new generation of AC-LED lighting technology has been nominated the “Building Environment” and “Power/Energy” award for 2012. This technology was invented by a research group consisting of the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry (CIAC), CAS and Szechwan Sunfor Light Co., Ltd. under the guidance of Prof. Zhang Hongjie and Prof. Li Chengyu of CIAC. Based on the LED luminescent materials, of which the after-glow is fitted with the frequency of common AC power supply, this technology has developed a new route to overcome the hardnut issue of flicker due to the chip directly drived by AC power source and made a great step forward in the field of LED lighting industry. This AC-LED lighting technology has been granted the Chinese invention patent, which holds totally national independent intellectual property rights. The AC lighting products, without the electronic ballast to convert AC into DC, are known for several advantages, such as higher efficiency, better radiatation, smaller size, longer life, lower cost, etc. So far, several different kinds of AC LED lighting products, such as bulbs, downlights, tubes and spotlights are widely used in subways, residence, hospitals, emporium, etc. In the meantime, the products have been certified by UL, FCC, CE, RoHS, etc., and thus exported to several other countries. The production capacity of the Szechwan Sunfor Light Co., Ltd. has reached several million sets a year, and realized the yearly output value over 150 million RMB yuan in 2012.