The third section of the 600,000-ton ethanol project in Shihuitan, Shihezi was disqualified in the bidding.

The tendering work to the remaining sections of the project is progressing steadily, and the winning bidders to multiple engineering and equipment sections have been determined.

· Non-destructive testing service section has shortlisted two units, Shaanxi Xiyu and Xinjiang Xinzheng, with a service period of 730 days;

· Gasification unit was awarded to Aerospace Long March Chemical Engineering Co., Ltd., with a winning bid amount of 676 million yuan, and 2 sets of 6.5 MPa aerospace furnaces will be adopted;

· Whole plant system and general auxiliary section was awarded to China Tianchen Engineering Corporation, with a winning bid price of 2.69 billion yuan;

· Heating center, atmosphere separation, and circulating aquatic environments station was awarded to China United Engineering Corporation, with a contract value of 1.09 billion yuan;

· Section 6: ethanol intermediate tank farm and coal storage and transportation project was also undertaken by China Tianchen Engineering Corporation, with an amount of 570 million yuan;

· Hydrogenation reactor equipment was awarded to Lanzhou LS Heavy Equipment Co., Ltd., with a winning bid amount of 57.86 million yuan.

Basic Overview of the Project: A 10-billion-yuan-level new material project with dual sectors of ethanol and chlor-alkali

The project is located in Shihu New Material manufacturing Park, 147th Regiment, 8th Division, Shihezi City, with a total investment of 13.967 billion yuan and an ecological preservation investment of 527 million yuan. The overall planned production capacity includes 600,000 tons of ethanol, 350,000 tons of ion-exchange membrane caustic soda, and 500,000 tons of PVC. The project is divided into two major units: the ethanol sector and the chlor-alkali sector.

The ethanol sector covers coal storage and transportation, atmosphere separation, gasification, treatment, low-temperature methanol washing, and finally the ethanol unit, supporting a product gaseous unit of 90,000 standard cubic meters per hour; the chlor-alkali sector includes units such as ethanol dehydration to ethylene, VCM, PVC, discarded materials salt treatment, and ion-exchange membrane caustic soda.

Process Route Innovation: Coal-based ethanol-to-ethylene replaces traditional calcium carbide-based PVC, achieving mercury-free production

The biggest highlight of this project lies in its brand-new process route, breaking through the traditional calcium carbide acetylene production mode in the PVC sector. The traditional calcium carbide process cannot prevent the consumption of mercury catalysts and has high energy consumption. The new project adopts the technical route of coal → methanol → ethanol → ethylene → PVC, eliminating mercury contamination from the source and realizing environmentally friendly production.

Ethanol dehydration process: Coal-based ethanol is preheated and gasified to 125-140℃, superheated to 370-430℃ through a heating furnace, and then sent to two-stage dehydration reactors. Using alumina catalysts, the crude ethylene produced is rectified to obtain polymer-grade ethylene items; the hydrogenation section uses rhodium-based catalysts, with interaction conditions of 280℃ and 5.0MPa. The manufacturing chain has flexible production advantages, and both ethanol and ethylene can be sold as commodities separately, with production adjustment space significantly better than the traditional calcium carbide-based PVC route.

Funding Support in Place, Domestic Coal-based Ethylene-based PVC Demonstration Project Enters Verification Period

In terms of funding, the project's main enterprise completed the second round of capital increase at the end of July, with the registered capital rising from 2 billion yuan to 3.359 billion yuan, and an additional 1.359 billion yuan of capital will be key invested in the construction of this project.

This project is China's first manufacturing demonstration project of coal-based ethylene-based PVC, representing the low-carbon transformation direction of the chlor-alkali sector. The new process can achieve the goals of mercury reduction, energy consumption reduction, and carbon reduction. The effectiveness of the project construction and subsequent operation will serve as a key verification sample to the transformation path of China's PVC sector.