Hydrocarbons produced from indirect liquefaction of coal has the distinct characteristics of rich chain alkanes (content>95%), free of aromatic, sulfur or other impurities, high alpha-olefins content (more than 50%). Alpha-olefins is an important high-end organic raw material, widely used as comonomer, high-end lubricants raw materials, depressants and surfactants, etc.
Through the operation of practice, China's coal to oil industry has entered the commercial stage. Yitai built China's first fully independent intellectual property right of 160kt/a coal indirect liquefaction industrialization demonstration project. At present, the company is to build 4 coal indirect liquefaction commercialization amplification projects in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang region with total capacity of 6Mt/a. At the same time, Lu'an, Shenhua Ningxia Coal Company are promoting a series of large-scale coal indirect liquefaction projects.
ASIACHEM data shows that, by the end of 2016, 7 coal indirect liquefaction projects have put into operation and successful commissioned in China, with total capacity of 1.76Mt/a, it is expected that from 2017 to 2020, there still 12.65Mt/a will be released. The supply of alpha-olefins during the coal-to-oil process will increase significantly.
Worldwide, alpha-olefins production methods and sources are mainly ethylene oligomerization, wax cracking, Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, alkane dehydrogenation, etc. Among, the F-T synthesis method developed and used by Sasol Company is to separate high-quality alpha-olefins from fractions of coal-based F-T synthesis process. The important products include 1-pentene, 1-hexene. At the same time, the company developed a 1-octene synthesis technology based on F-T synthesis fractions. In view of China has many coal to oil projects put into operation and under construction, the process is one of options which can be used by coal to oil enterprises to prepare alpha-olefins or recycle hydrocarbon by-products.
The blooming development of China's coal chemical and petrochemical based PE industry, as well as the high-end lubricants market, will drive alpha-olefins demand steady growth. Compared with the crude oil route, coal-based alpha-olefins and fine chemicals have lower average production cost, good quality, high added value, obvious competitive advantage, good market space and development prospects.
