Beijing, Oct 04: China, has commenced constructing the world's largest base to develop technologies for liquefying coal in Tianjin city, a report said today. Costing a total investment of 150 million yuan (about 18 million US dollars), the base is a national priority project funded by the Shenhua group, a coal conglomerate based in the northern port city of Tianjin.
Germany, Japan and the US have conducted similar researches in coal-liquefying technologies, but none put their technological results into commercial operation, Xinhua news agency reported.
China-developed technologies, an outcome of the past 20-plus years' research in the field, have a much higher rate of oil yield from coal liquefying, or up to 65 per cent, experts said.
In the technology developed by China, coal is first crumbled and mixed with heavy oil into coal slurry which is put under high-temperature, and intense, high-pressure conditions for reaction with catalysers, and finally hydrogen is injected to reactant to yield liquefied oil. This oil is crude and can be processed into gasoline, diesel and aero fuel, experts said.
The Shenhua group will use coal produced in Dongsheng coalfield in Shenfu county in northwest China's Shanxi province to test and build the world's first commercial production line with a daily handing capacity of 6,000 tonnes of coal by 2005 in the inner Mongolia autonomous region, which will have an annual output of over five million tonnes of various oil products.
China is one of the world's leading producer of coal. Bureau Report