(253a) Innovative Fluidized Bed Technologies in Coal to Chemical Processes

The increasing demand of chemicals including olefins and aromatics in China has triggered significant interests in developing coal via syngas and/or methanol to chemical processes. One of the examples is the methanol to olefins process (MTO) developed by the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, which was successfully commercialized in 2010 in Shenhua Baotou's coal-to-olefins (CTO) plant (with an ethylene and propylene production capacity of 600 kt/a). In this DMTO process, fluidized bed reactor-regenerator configuration, akin to that in the fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) process, has been used. The DMTO reactor is a shallow fluidized bed with an aspect ratio of 0.3, representing a novel practice in industrial fluidized bed design. In this paper, we will discuss the progress of fluidized bed technologies in DICP, focusing on the applications in coal to chemical processes developed in recent years. We first report the fluidized bed technologies used in DMTO process, which include the shallow bed reactor, catalyst circulation rate control, and pre-coking technology. We then introduce the research and development (R&D) activities on fluidized bed reactor development and scale-up for methanol to propylene (DMTP) and methanol to aromatics processes. Beyond that, our strategy of innovative research for coal to chemical processes will also be highlighted.