On May 28th of this year, at the seminar of the Development Research Center of the State Council on "Energy Utilization of Waste Plastics", the process was approved by experts from the Solid Waste Management Center of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, National Development and Reform Commission and Tsinghua University. Among them, Jin Yong, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of the Institute of Chemical Science and Technology of Tsinghua University, believes that "the whole set of equipment is unique and cleverly conceived in the process."
The first "flexible" process, oil output rate of up to 95%
The conversion of waste plastic into oil is equivalent to a reverse reaction process.
"Plastic is the olefin molecules in oil through the polymerization reaction to produce polyethylene, polypropylene and other products." Li Yong said that the large molecules that have been polymerized in waste plastics are allowed to undergo a cracking reaction at high temperatures, where the molecular chains break and depolymerize into small molecules, and the small olefin molecules can be converted into gasoline and diesel.
Although the direction of plastic oiling is well known and theoretically possible, how to achieve pollution-free, high oil yield and industrial and continuous production has become a world-wide problem that needs to be urgently cracked. Domestic research in this area has been conducted for more than 30 years and there has been no breakthrough.
"The difficulty is that plastic oleation is a whole set of system equipment, involving refining, machinery manufacturing, industrial design, automation control and many other professions, in the specific test process, a deviation in the adjustment of process details or equipment parameters will lead to the disruption of the whole chain, and there is no previous experience to learn from." Li Yong said.
To my surprise, the breakthrough in this technology gap of the Fuhai company, but is a private enterprise born and raised in Sanhe City. Li Yong began to study plastic oiling technology in 2010, after visiting China University of Petroleum, Beijing University of Chemical Technology and other relevant experts, has invested more than 40 million yuan, after continuous experimental summary, in June 2013 in the first domestic development of this equipment. Li Yong named it "pollution-free waste plastic flexible oiling process".
Why is it called flexible? In the face of the author's questions, Li Yong said, "flexible is my own name for the process, the chemical field does not have this terminology."
Li Yong introduced the flexible process compared to other plastic oiling technology, the most direct difference is that the entire process from low to high three temperatures, slowly cracking oiling of waste plastics, rather than the "indigenous oil refining" in the high-temperature rapid cracking reaction, so that the plastic quickly gasified. "The previous plastic oiling process, the chemical reaction is violent, our process, the chemical reaction is soft, so called flexible."
The process of turning waste plastic into gasoline and diesel oil includes: plastic crushing - low temperature depolymerization and liquefaction - solid-liquid separation and dry distillation - high temperature heating slurry - catalytic cracking and gasification - condensation and separation - finished oil . This process passed the identification and acceptance of new products and technologies by the provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology in November 2013, and the performance indicators are leading in China and can be realized in mass production.
"Other domestic waste plastic oleation process, it is difficult to control the reaction temperature of raw materials in the low to medium to high range throughout the process, and the reaction temperature is mostly between 360℃-600℃, always running at a high level." Li Yong explained, and flexible oiling process through reasonable control of temperature, pressure and other reaction conditions, so that the waste plastics in 200 ℃ -250 ℃ on the cracking reaction, gradually transition to high temperature, step-by-step classification of various types of oil collection, to avoid excessive high-temperature cracking generated by coking, condensation reaction aromatization, reduce the coking rate of raw materials, reduce the content of impurities in the oil .
"The whole set of process is not only beneficial to oil production," said Li Yong, "and the oil yield is high, up to 95%."
Solving the problem of "fluidization" and turning waste plastics into wealth
In Fuhai's plastic oiling workshop, waste plastic enters the feed port and is transported by conveyor belt to the highest device in the equipment - the heating furnace - after pretreatment, and then goes through the treatment of pyrolysis reactor, catalytic reaction tower, fractionation tower, cooling tower from top to bottom, and the raw oil flows out from the end outlet.
The whole set of process flow seems to be watertight, but the research and development needs to crack a difficult problem, waste plastic fluidization is one of them.
There are two traditional methods of oiling waste plastics. The simplest and most "soil refining" method is thermal cracking, the waste plastic into the high-temperature heating furnace for thermal cracking, the disadvantage is the high reaction temperature, long time, energy consumption, the discharge of a large amount of waste residue waste gas. Another method is catalytic cracking, mixing catalysts with waste plastics for heating, with fast reaction and low energy consumption, but many oil impurities.
"Because plastic is a poor conductor of heat, when using these two methods, in the high-temperature furnace, the plastic close to the inner wall of the furnace will be quickly carbonized, a little further away from the furnace has not been fully liquefied, the plastic can not be fully ** decomposition, so they will cause the low rate of oil, the problem of poor quality oil." Li Yong said, more importantly, both process equipment can only use intermittent operation, can not be industrialized continuous production, "that is, after a furnace of plastic pyrolysis, you must wait for the furnace to cool down and then add material, add material before the inner wall of the furnace adhering to clean up."
However, the flexible oiling equipment adopts a special liquid-forming process, and the process is cycled through reasonable control of the chemical reaction conditions, so that the plastic is all fluidized in the liquid state throughout the reaction process. "The liquidized plastic is not easy to cause the blockage of the pipeline, will not form a large number of adhesions in the inner wall of the equipment, avoiding the problem of only intermittent operation because of cleaning equipment, greatly improving the processing efficiency." Li Yong said that the current set of equipment can handle up to 300 tons of plastic waste per day.
In order to achieve continuous processing of waste plastics, they also developed a "pneumatic dense closed feed device", raw materials in the heating furnace to advance at the same time, the air pump then sealed the mouth of the furnace, "while advancing while closed, to achieve the whole process of continuous closed operation. "
The breakthrough of the flexible oiling process opens up a new path for expanding energy. Li Yong introduced, compared to crude oil refining into gasoline and diesel fuel 60%-70%, plastic oleochemical production of raw oil, 98% can be refined into gasoline and diesel fuel. "A ton of plastic oleochemical production of gasoline and diesel, equivalent to 2.2 tons of crude oil."
At present, the energy utilization rate of waste plastics in developed countries is above 70%, while the recycling rate of domestic waste plastics is only 22%, which means that more than 30 million tons of waste plastics produced in China every year are wasted, not only wasting resources, but also polluting the environment.
"If the flexible oiling process is used, all these plastics will be turned into wealth." Li Yong calculated an account: if the technology is industrialized, the country can produce more than 20 million tons of diesel fuel each year using waste plastics, the market price of more than 200 billion yuan, equivalent to reducing the use of 60 million tons of crude oil to refine diesel fuel, equal to 70% of the country's annual imports of crude oil, than the peak of the Daqing oil field in the year 55 million tons of oil is also high, equivalent to the country found a new "Daqing oil field." "And because of the wide range of raw materials, this 'oil field' will be spread across the country, neither polluting the environment nor changing the geological structure."
Using a closed, oxidation-free method, the treatment process has near-zero pollution
On July 16, in the Institute of Renewable Energy Equipment and Technology of Fuhai Company, I saw the gasoline made from waste plastic.
"After the testing and analysis of the Institute of Petrochemical Sciences, the flash point, density, viscosity, ash and other indicators of this oil are higher than the national standard." Li Yong said that the oil is not only of high quality, but also the whole production process is nearly zero pollution.
In the Fuhai company conference room, push open the window, I can not smell the "native oil refining" kind of pungent smell, can only see not far from the top of the running heating furnace a chimney emitting faint white smoke.
Li Yong introduced, at present, China's waste plastics disposal channels are mainly landfills, incineration, granulation, etc.. Landfills take up a lot of land and produce secondary pollution; incineration produces toxic and harmful substances that are difficult to handle completely and pollute the environment; pelletizing requires clean plastic, and raw materials need to be washed in advance, which will waste a lot of water.
"Our flexible oiling equipment and process has low requirements for raw materials, which is the poor quality plastic that can no longer be recycled. So compared to other treatment methods, it does not take up land; raw materials do not need to be washed, and there is no waste water discharge; because of the use of closed, non-oxidation method, after low, medium and high temperature, there are steps to collect the part of the plastic that can be transformed into oil, truly 'squeeze dry and eat clean', also basically no waste residue. The whole set of closed equipment only has a vent designed in the heating furnace to emit a small amount of exhaust gas. It can realize the environmental protection and efficient use of waste plastics."
Li Yong said that the whole set of process equipment of Fuhai Company has passed the test of professional testing institution - Beijing Spectrum Testing Co., Ltd. and the emission concentrations of soot, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and hydrogen chloride are 4.5mg/m3, 28mg/m3, 4mg/m3 and 0.34mg/m3 respectively, which are much lower than the national standards.
At the end of this year, Fuhai will invest in the completion of a flexible oiling process production line in Sanhe City with a daily processing capacity of 100 tons of zero pollution waste plastics. It is understood that after the completion of the production line can take the lead in solving the white pollution problem in Langfang area, and can even radiate the surrounding area to help deal with the plastic waste in Beijing and Tianjin.
The first "flexible" process, oil output rate of up to 95%
The conversion of waste plastic into oil is equivalent to a reverse reaction process.
"Plastic is the olefin molecules in oil through the polymerization reaction to produce polyethylene, polypropylene and other products." Li Yong said that the large molecules that have been polymerized in waste plastics are allowed to undergo a cracking reaction at high temperatures, where the molecular chains break and depolymerize into small molecules, and the small olefin molecules can be converted into gasoline and diesel.
Although the direction of plastic oiling is well known and theoretically possible, how to achieve pollution-free, high oil yield and industrial and continuous production has become a world-wide problem that needs to be urgently cracked. Domestic research in this area has been conducted for more than 30 years and there has been no breakthrough.
"The difficulty is that plastic oleation is a whole set of system equipment, involving refining, machinery manufacturing, industrial design, automation control and many other professions, in the specific test process, a deviation in the adjustment of process details or equipment parameters will lead to the disruption of the whole chain, and there is no previous experience to learn from." Li Yong said.
To my surprise, the breakthrough in this technology gap of the Fuhai company, but is a private enterprise born and raised in Sanhe City. Li Yong began to study plastic oiling technology in 2010, after visiting China University of Petroleum, Beijing University of Chemical Technology and other relevant experts, has invested more than 40 million yuan, after continuous experimental summary, in June 2013 in the first domestic development of this equipment. Li Yong named it "pollution-free waste plastic flexible oiling process".
Why is it called flexible? In the face of the author's questions, Li Yong said, "flexible is my own name for the process, the chemical field does not have this terminology."
Li Yong introduced the flexible process compared to other plastic oiling technology, the most direct difference is that the entire process from low to high three temperatures, slowly cracking oiling of waste plastics, rather than the "indigenous oil refining" in the high-temperature rapid cracking reaction, so that the plastic quickly gasified. "The previous plastic oiling process, the chemical reaction is violent, our process, the chemical reaction is soft, so called flexible."
The process of turning waste plastic into gasoline and diesel oil includes: plastic crushing - low temperature depolymerization and liquefaction - solid-liquid separation and dry distillation - high temperature heating slurry - catalytic cracking and gasification - condensation and separation - finished oil . This process passed the identification and acceptance of new products and technologies by the provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology in November 2013, and the performance indicators are leading in China and can be realized in mass production.
"Other domestic waste plastic oleation process, it is difficult to control the reaction temperature of raw materials in the low to medium to high range throughout the process, and the reaction temperature is mostly between 360℃-600℃, always running at a high level." Li Yong explained, and flexible oiling process through reasonable control of temperature, pressure and other reaction conditions, so that the waste plastics in 200 ℃ -250 ℃ on the cracking reaction, gradually transition to high temperature, step-by-step classification of various types of oil collection, to avoid excessive high-temperature cracking generated by coking, condensation reaction aromatization, reduce the coking rate of raw materials, reduce the content of impurities in the oil .
"The whole set of process is not only beneficial to oil production," said Li Yong, "and the oil yield is high, up to 95%."
Solving the problem of "fluidization" and turning waste plastics into wealth
In Fuhai's plastic oiling workshop, waste plastic enters the feed port and is transported by conveyor belt to the highest device in the equipment - the heating furnace - after pretreatment, and then goes through the treatment of pyrolysis reactor, catalytic reaction tower, fractionation tower, cooling tower from top to bottom, and the raw oil flows out from the end outlet.
The whole set of process flow seems to be watertight, but the research and development needs to crack a difficult problem, waste plastic fluidization is one of them.
There are two traditional methods of oiling waste plastics. The simplest and most "soil refining" method is thermal cracking, the waste plastic into the high-temperature heating furnace for thermal cracking, the disadvantage is the high reaction temperature, long time, energy consumption, the discharge of a large amount of waste residue waste gas. Another method is catalytic cracking, mixing catalysts with waste plastics for heating, with fast reaction and low energy consumption, but many oil impurities.
"Because plastic is a poor conductor of heat, when using these two methods, in the high-temperature furnace, the plastic close to the inner wall of the furnace will be quickly carbonized, a little further away from the furnace has not been fully liquefied, the plastic can not be fully ** decomposition, so they will cause the low rate of oil, the problem of poor quality oil." Li Yong said, more importantly, both process equipment can only use intermittent operation, can not be industrialized continuous production, "that is, after a furnace of plastic pyrolysis, you must wait for the furnace to cool down and then add material, add material before the inner wall of the furnace adhering to clean up."
However, the flexible oiling equipment adopts a special liquid-forming process, and the process is cycled through reasonable control of the chemical reaction conditions, so that the plastic is all fluidized in the liquid state throughout the reaction process. "The liquidized plastic is not easy to cause the blockage of the pipeline, will not form a large number of adhesions in the inner wall of the equipment, avoiding the problem of only intermittent operation because of cleaning equipment, greatly improving the processing efficiency." Li Yong said that the current set of equipment can handle up to 300 tons of plastic waste per day.
In order to achieve continuous processing of waste plastics, they also developed a "pneumatic dense closed feed device", raw materials in the heating furnace to advance at the same time, the air pump then sealed the mouth of the furnace, "while advancing while closed, to achieve the whole process of continuous closed operation. "
The breakthrough of the flexible oiling process opens up a new path for expanding energy. Li Yong introduced, compared to crude oil refining into gasoline and diesel fuel 60%-70%, plastic oleochemical production of raw oil, 98% can be refined into gasoline and diesel fuel. "A ton of plastic oleochemical production of gasoline and diesel, equivalent to 2.2 tons of crude oil."
At present, the energy utilization rate of waste plastics in developed countries is above 70%, while the recycling rate of domestic waste plastics is only 22%, which means that more than 30 million tons of waste plastics produced in China every year are wasted, not only wasting resources, but also polluting the environment.
"If the flexible oiling process is used, all these plastics will be turned into wealth." Li Yong calculated an account: if the technology is industrialized, the country can produce more than 20 million tons of diesel fuel each year using waste plastics, the market price of more than 200 billion yuan, equivalent to reducing the use of 60 million tons of crude oil to refine diesel fuel, equal to 70% of the country's annual imports of crude oil, than the peak of the Daqing oil field in the year 55 million tons of oil is also high, equivalent to the country found a new "Daqing oil field." "And because of the wide range of raw materials, this 'oil field' will be spread across the country, neither polluting the environment nor changing the geological structure."
Using a closed, oxidation-free method, the treatment process has near-zero pollution
On July 16, in the Institute of Renewable Energy Equipment and Technology of Fuhai Company, I saw the gasoline made from waste plastic.
"After the testing and analysis of the Institute of Petrochemical Sciences, the flash point, density, viscosity, ash and other indicators of this oil are higher than the national standard." Li Yong said that the oil is not only of high quality, but also the whole production process is nearly zero pollution.
In the Fuhai company conference room, push open the window, I can not smell the "native oil refining" kind of pungent smell, can only see not far from the top of the running heating furnace a chimney emitting faint white smoke.
Li Yong introduced, at present, China's waste plastics disposal channels are mainly landfills, incineration, granulation, etc.. Landfills take up a lot of land and produce secondary pollution; incineration produces toxic and harmful substances that are difficult to handle completely and pollute the environment; pelletizing requires clean plastic, and raw materials need to be washed in advance, which will waste a lot of water.
"Our flexible oiling equipment and process has low requirements for raw materials, which is the poor quality plastic that can no longer be recycled. So compared to other treatment methods, it does not take up land; raw materials do not need to be washed, and there is no waste water discharge; because of the use of closed, non-oxidation method, after low, medium and high temperature, there are steps to collect the part of the plastic that can be transformed into oil, truly 'squeeze dry and eat clean', also basically no waste residue. The whole set of closed equipment only has a vent designed in the heating furnace to emit a small amount of exhaust gas. It can realize the environmental protection and efficient use of waste plastics."
Li Yong said that the whole set of process equipment of Fuhai Company has passed the test of professional testing institution - Beijing Spectrum Testing Co., Ltd. and the emission concentrations of soot, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and hydrogen chloride are 4.5mg/m3, 28mg/m3, 4mg/m3 and 0.34mg/m3 respectively, which are much lower than the national standards.
At the end of this year, Fuhai will invest in the completion of a flexible oiling process production line in Sanhe City with a daily processing capacity of 100 tons of zero pollution waste plastics. It is understood that after the completion of the production line can take the lead in solving the white pollution problem in Langfang area, and can even radiate the surrounding area to help deal with the plastic waste in Beijing and Tianjin.