Ethanol has long been an effective additive to biofuels and is also the most important component of the chemical industry. Traditionally, these needs are obtained from agricultural products, which unwittingly undermine the food market. Chinese scientists have managed to develop a technology to obtain the purest ethanol from low-grade coal, thus releasing grain, corn and other carbohydrate-rich products to the food market.

DMTE technology was developed by the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) together with the state-owned Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum Group. During coke production, gas is collected from which methanol is produced. Ethanol is then produced after a series of reactions of methanol in the presence of a catalyst.

The development and technical process of the line started in 2010. In 2017, a group of researchers helped design the world’s first 100,000-tonne coal-based ethanol production line, built in the northwestern province of Shaanxi. Since then, researchers have optimized the reaction process and reduced production costs by replacing the original expensive catalysts with low-value metals.

In June last year, a complex for the production of ethanol from coal with a capacity of 500,000 tons of ethanol per year in China was launched in test mode using only domestically produced equipment. The plant started operating in the same Shaanxi province. The new facility, which officially started its operations on December 29, became the largest production facility in the world with an annual ethanol production capacity of 600 thousand tons.

China needs 10 million tons of ethanol annually for the needs of its chemical industry and the production of fuel additives. Last year, 2.7 million tons of this substance in the country was produced from fermented grain. The facilities currently operational and under construction for the production of ethanol from coal are aimed to produce up to 3.95 million tons of ethanol annually. According to the source, there are 11 such enterprises in China, and two more will start operating abroad using Chinese technology.

100 million tons of ethanol are produced annually from grains worldwide, primarily in the USA and Brazil. There is a chance that China will stop using raw materials for food products to produce ethanol. This is even more important because China is also dependent on grain imports.