Technology License Contract for First 500 000 t/a DMTE Unit Signed

On December 15, 2017, Shaanxi Xinghua Group Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum (Group) Co., Ltd., and Yanchang Zhongke (Dalian) Energy Technology Co., Ltd. signed “Technology License Contract of 500 000 t/a DMTE Unit”, marking the entry of China’s DMTE technology into large-scale industrialization.
The DMTE (methanol/syngas to absolute ethanol through dimethyl ether carbonylation) technology is a patented technology that Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum (Group) Co., Ltd. developed with Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences, with complete proprietary intellectual property rights, another technological breakthrough in the coal chemical field achieved by the team led by Academician Liu Zhongmin, Director of Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, after the DMTO (methanol-to-olefin) technology.
A 100 000 t/a syngas-to-ethanol industrial demonstration unit that was built based on this technology has attracted a lot of attention from both domestic and international coal chemical industries since the whole process was successfully operated during January 2017. Since the unit started operation, all technical indicators have met or exceeded design parameters, and the service life of the carbonylation catalyst has exceeded 7 500 hours.