Ethylene: Carrying the National Memory of Modern Industry
After years of development, my country's ethylene industry has entered the ranks of a few countries that independently master large-scale ethylene complete sets of technology on the basis of a blank.
After half a century of development, my country's ethylene industry is moving from a major producer to a powerful producer, and has become the world's second largest ethylene producer after the United States. According to statistics, the total domestic ethylene production capacity in 2018 was about 26 million tons, accounting for about 14% of the total global production capacity; the newly added production capacity was about 1.65 million tons, with a growth rate of 7%. At the same time, it has also promoted the development of my country's PET plastic bottles and plastic pump heads!
my country's ethylene industry was once blank. For more than ten years after the founding of New China, my country's ethylene output was almost zero, and more than 90% of petrochemical products were imported. In the 1960s, China's first steam cracking unit was completed and put into operation at Lanzhou Petrochemical Company, opening the history of China's petrochemical industry led by ethylene plants. In the 1990s, in order to expand production capacity and reduce energy consumption, Yanshan Petrochemical expanded its 300,000 tons/year ethylene plant to 450,000 tons/year, and then expanded it to 700,000 tons/year. The ethylene expansion project is my country’s ethylene plant. Industrial development has played a role model. With reference to its model, 4 sets of ethylene plants in Shanghai, Yangzi, Qilu, and Daqing have also undergone technical transformation. The annual production capacity of the plants has been expanded from 300,000 tons to 400,000 to 450,000 tons, and then to 700,000 to 800,000 tons. Whether in terms of scale or technical level, the transformed ethylene plant and downstream petrochemical plant have reached the international leading level of the same era.
In 2010, the largest single-tonne ethylene plant in China at that time, the 1 million-ton/year ethylene plant of Tianjin Petrochemical Company, was successfully started up at one time, marking that my country has mastered the ability to independently build a million-ton-level ethylene plant. 9 million-ton ethylene production bases. In 2012, Daqing Petrochemical's 600,000-ton/year ethylene plant was completed and put into operation, achieving the goal of localization of large-scale ethylene technology process packages.
Ethylene technology is regarded as one of the petrochemical technologies with the highest technical content. Through research, design, production, equipment manufacturing and other units of several generations of technical personnel, after more than 30 years of continuous joint research, ethylene technology has gone from a blank to a key breakthrough in cracking technology, and finally completed the green and efficient million-ton-level ethylene complete set of technology. Integrated innovation has achieved a comprehensive leap in my country's ethylene technology, making my country one of the few countries in the world that independently masters complete sets of ethylene technology, and Sinopec has also become one of the world's top five patent vendors. On December 18, 2018, the green and high-efficiency megaton-level ethylene complete technology development and industrial application project jointly completed by 10 units including Sinopec Engineering Construction Co., Ltd. passed the scientific and technological achievement appraisal. The development and industrial application of this green and high-efficiency million-ton-level ethylene complete set of technology has led the continuous innovation of ethylene technology, promoted the rapid development of the ethylene industry and downstream related industries, and is generally at the international leading level.
Over the past 70 years, my country has experienced an evolution from scratch, from weak to strong, in terms of ethylene equipment. Ethylene cracking furnace is the core unit of ethylene cracking. For many years, related technologies and equipment have been monopolized by foreign companies, which has severely restricted my country's development of ethylene technology and production capacity.
The CBL cracking furnace independently developed by Sinopec has now ranked among the forefront of technical strength, breaking the long-term domestic monopoly of foreign equipment such as American SRT cracking furnace, US cracking furnace, millisecond cracking furnace, German LSCC cracking furnace, and French gradient dynamic cracking furnace. The situation of the ethylene plant. At present, Sinopec has realized the localization of the process, engineering design and equipment manufacturing of the cracking furnace and separation system. At the same time, it is gradually realizing the domestic design and manufacture of cold boxes and three ethylene machines (cracking gas compressors, propylene compressors, and ethylene compressors).化.
The third ethylene machine undertakes the important functions of the separation, preparation and supply of raw materials for ethylene production. It is related to the full-load and high-quality operation of the entire chemical production system. It has been imported from abroad. It is the last set of three units to achieve localization. Known as the "crown" in the compressor field. In 1998, Daqing Petrochemical used the 240,000-ton/year ethylene plant compressor manufactured by Shengu Group for the first time, declaring that China could build its own centrifugal compressor for large ethylene plant.
With the localization of large-scale units such as Tianjin Petrochemical’s cracked gas compressors, Zhenhai Refinery’s propylene compressors, PetroChina Fushun Petrochemical’s ethylene compressors, and Wuhan Petrochemical’s ethylene compressors, my country has completely broken the foreign monopoly, and the current domestic ethylene single-unit production capacity has been Reaching 1 million tons/year, it has the capability of research and development and complete sets of million-ton-level ethylene plants.
At the same time, my country's ethylene industry has also made remarkable achievements in localized additives. Won the second prize of the 2018 National Science and Technology Progress Award for the Key Auxiliary Technology and Application Project of the Complete Process of Large-scale Ethylene Plant. The key additives of the complete process of the ethylene plant were integrated and created, which broke the long-term dependence on imports of key additives for the ethylene plant in my country and realized it. A large-scale application. The results of the project have effectively promoted the cost reduction and efficiency enhancement of petrochemical enterprises, improved the level of my country's ethylene industry's own technology, and greatly promoted the localization of the "three agents" in my country's petrochemical industry.
In the future, with the advancement of the construction of seven domestic petrochemical bases and the commissioning of many coal (methanol) to olefin plants, especially the construction of a large number of ethane (light hydrocarbon) cracking plants, the ethylene industry will usher in explosive growth, and import dependence will also increase. Will be completely reversed.