China's first methanol hydrogen production and hydrogenation integrated station was put into operation
Reporter | Hou Ruining
China's first methanol hydrogen production and hydrogenation integrated station was put into operation.
On February 15, Jiemian News learned from the scene that the first distributed methanol hydrogen production and hydrogenation integrated station in China, built by Sinopec North Energy (Dalian) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Sinopec North Energy Company), was officially put into use in Dalian Free Trade Zone.
The station adopts the whole industrial chain model of integrated development of production, storage, processing and transportation. Compared with the traditional hydrogen refueling station, the station has increased the manufacturing link, and the cost of hydrogen can be reduced by more than 20%.
Sinopec said that the integrated model has greatly reduced the intermediate transportation cost of hydrogen, reduced the hydrogen storage capacity of hydrogen refueling stations and high-pressure hydrogen unloading operations, and can also better ensure the safe operation of hydrogen refueling stations.
According to the Tianyancha APP, Sinopec North Energy Company is a joint venture between Sinopec Fuel Oil Sales Company (hereinafter referred to as Sinopec Fuel Oil Company) and Dalian Huayi Investment Holding Co., Ltd., with a shareholding ratio of 50:50.
The hydrogen production and refueling station is upgraded from the Dalian Shenggang Oil and Gas Hydrogen and Electric Service Integrated Refueling Station of Sinopec Fuel Oil Company.
"The station's methanol hydrogen refueling unit has a hydrogen production capacity of 500 standard cubic meters per hour. The main plant covers an area of 64 square meters, with high site utilization, and the traditional equipment of the same hydrogen production scale covers an area of more than 500 square meters. Xu Run, deputy director of the 27th Research Office of Sinopec Petrochemical Research Institute, told Jiemian News and other media.
At present, the station can produce 1,000 kilograms of 99.999% high-purity hydrogen per day, which can meet the refueling service of about 100 hydrogen buses.
According to the different raw materials for hydrogen production, hydrogen production technologies include direct hydrogen production from fossil fuels based on coal, oil and natural gas, hydrogen production from industrial by-products represented by coke oven gas, chlor-alkali tail gas and alcohols, and hydrogen production by water electrolysis.
Methanol hydrogen production is one of the technical routes for hydrogen production, which has the advantages of abundant sources, low cost, and easy storage and transportation as a liquid at room temperature and pressure.
China is the world's largest producer of methanol. According to data from Zhongyu Information, by the end of 2022, China had a total methanol production capacity of 113 million tons, accounting for about 60% of the world's total production capacity, and an effective production capacity of about 100 million tons, an increase of 5.7% year-on-year. Last year, all the new methanol production capacity in the world was concentrated in China, with an additional capacity of 5.545 million tons.
In the production process of the above-mentioned methanol hydrogen production and hydrogenation project, there is no solid waste impact, no wastewater discharge, no tail gas pollution, and the energy consumption is low and methanol consumption is less than that of similar operating devices in China.
In recent years, Sinopec has proposed to build China's No. 1 hydrogen energy company, and plans to build 1,000 hydrogen refueling stations or oil-hydrogen co-construction stations in the 14th Five-Year Plan.
Dalian Shenggang Integrated Refueling Station was once China's first "five-in-one" integrated refueling station for oil, gas, hydrogen and electric services. So far, Sinopec Fuel Oil Company has built two similar integrated refueling stations in the Dalian Free Trade Zone, and another six are under construction.
As of August 2022, Sinopec has built 83 hydrogen refueling stations (oil-hydrogen co-construction stations), making it the largest enterprise in the world in terms of building and operating hydrogen refueling stations, and has built nine hydrogen fuel cell hydrogen supply centers.
In November 2021, Sinopec launched China's first 10,000-ton photovoltaic green hydrogen demonstration project, Sinopec Xinjiang Kuqa Green Hydrogen Demonstration Project, and in December 2022, Sinopec's first self-developed megawatt-level PEM water electrolysis hydrogen production unit was put into operation in Yanshan Petrochemical.
