Issue 14

ISSUE 14 TECHNOLOGY AND PROJECTBreakthrough Made in AcrylicAcid Sewage Treatment TechnologyYan Xiaoqiang, Liu QingqingThe acrylic acid sewage treatment station, with aninvestment of over RMB10 million from Acrylic AcidBranch of Zhenghe Petrochemical Group, met the relevantnational standards for all its exterior discharge indexes through72 consecutive hours of monitoring by an inspection andacceptance working group, marking a successful application ofbiochemical technology to acrylic acid sewage treatment, thusfurther enriching acrylic acid sewage treatment technology. Thefacility, with a daily sewage treatment capacity of 150 tons,can decrease discharged pollutants by 65,664m 3 annually anddecrease COD discharge by 2,626.56 tons. Using an EGSB reactor,an advanced anaerobic unit at present, the facility introducesadvanced biological technology in acrylic acid sewage treatmentduring reinforced treatment of high-concentration organicsewage. According to estimation, treating a ton of sewage withthis new process can save a cost of around RMB300 comparedto the traditional process of incineration. Meanwhile, the unitis equipped with a set of 120kW methane generating units togenerate 2,700kWh of power every day using the methaneproduced from sewage treatment, which not only satisfied thepower usage of the sewage treatment station, but also savedpower charge of RMB1,700 a day and an annual power charge ofover RMB600,000 for the company.SRDICI Makes Breakthrough inMaking Hydrogen from Coalbed Gas byAutothermic ConversionXie Zhaopingbreakthrough was made in the key technology for "hydrogenA production from coalbed gas autothermic conversion," aproject under the national "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" TechnologyR&D Program undertaken by the Southwest Research & DesignInstitute of Chemical Industry (SRDICI).Methane in coalbed gas is an excellent raw material forhydrogen. A reaction of methane and water vapor caused bythe heat from combustion of oxygen and methane in coalbedgas produces a mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide,carbon dioxide and nitrogen. All impurities are eliminatedto produce pure hydrogen through PSA (pressure swingadsorption). In the technical process of making hydrogenfrom coalbed gas, steam conversion and conversion reactionare both mature technologies, and the key is the R&D onthe catalyst for autothermic conversion. In recent years, theinstitute has determined the catalyst formula and completedpilot development through repeated technological tests.Specialists analyzed that, industrialization of the project ofhydrogen production from coalbed gas containing intermediatemethane, would not only provide hydrogen users witheconomical hydrogen sources, but also solve the problemsof environmental pollution and resource wasting caused bydischarge of coalbed gas.Zhonghao Chenguang Research Institute of ChemicalIndustry successfully produced 20 batches of environmentfriendlyfluorous rubber goods, with their major indexPFOA (perfluorooctanoate) content meeting the productionrequirement of environment-friendly fluorous rubber andtheir physical properties meeting traditional fluorous rubberrequirements according to a test by the authorities. Thisallows a significant transformation from traditional productionto environmental production of fluorous rubber. All thefluorous production units of Zhonghao Chenguang have alreadybeen transformed into environment-friendly fluorous rubberproduction units.Zhonghao ChenguangDevelops Environment-friendlyFluorous Rubber GoodsOctober 2008Wang YudePFOA is largely used as a dispersant for production offluorous resin and fluorous rubber. Since the "Teflon Event" inJuly 2004, developed countries like the U.K. and the U.S. aswell as the European Union successively worked out countermeasuresand policies to restrict and cut the production anduse of PFOA and relevant products, and thus formed marketand technology barriers. However, the institute grasped thetrend, organized scientific research elite to seek a PFOAalternative by all means and to make a great number ofselection experiments, and preliminarily chose a chemicalsubstance for dispersion polymerization. Following theexperiments, it successively tackled numerous problems intechnology and equipment during chemical production ofscale, and eventually took the lead in achieving productionsuccess. Based on that, the institute stepped up R&D forapplications, completed research on the application ofthe PFOA alternative to production of fluorous rubber, andsuccessfully produced the first batch of environment - friendlyfluorous rubber. It is the first of its kind in China, markingmonumental progress in production technology for fluorousrubber. The first batch has been delivered to customers foruse.In road tests at largedomestic mines, thegiant all-steel tiresmanufactured by HaohuaSouth China (Guilin)Rubber Co., Ltd. havewithstood severe localconditions such as hight e m p e r a t u r e , h e a v yrain and great day-nighttemperature swings. Thelatest data show that thegiant all-steel tires haverun an accumulated 5,500kilometers and 430 hours,and all indexes of the tireslike "air pressure, tire temperature, abrasion and load deflection" have been normal. The tires areto be put into bulk production and into the market. (Photo by Song Yu)5