PX: Complement the last short board of the industrial chain

Aromatics represent a country's petrochemical technology level, and xylene (PX) is the most used product in aromatics production. From the introduction of technology in 1975 to build the first set of 27,000 tons / year device, to the world's third master of independent aromatic complete sets of technology, and has 14 million tons / year of the world's largest production capacity, China's PX industry in the 40 years of reform and opening up to complement the petrochemical industry chain's last short board, out of a technology from nothing, production capacity from zero to the world's largest development path.
In 1975, China applied the introduction of technology to build 27,000 tons / year PX device, opened the industrial production of PX, PX as raw materials for the production of really good and card, to this period of people's lives brought light and bright . In the 20 years since then, China's PX industry has developed slowly and supply and demand have been relatively balanced. Then 2000, 2009 and 2014-2015 are the three stages of the rapid development of China's PX industry, a number of devices have been built. As of 2017, China's PX production capacity has reached 14 million tons / year, is the world's largest PX producer.
rapid growth of production capacity, China's PX consumption growth rate is faster, self-seppic rate of long-term less than 50%, one of the important reasons is that PX production technology long-term dependence on imports, and in technology and adsorbent products bargaining, device expansion and other aspects have no voice, industrial development is subject to people. It is understood that a set of 600,000 tons / year PX device technology licensing fees of hundreds of millions of yuan, and imported adsorbents are as high as 200 million to 300 million yuan. "Just want to eat a peach, but want to buy the whole orchard", is the PX introduced technology at that time the actual situation.
fact, China as early as the 1970s carried out the research and development of PX production technology, but PX system separation technology has not been able to overcome, become the last barrier to aromatics complete sets of technology.
In order to break through the technical barriers of adsorption separation, the Academy of Stone Sciences from the early 1990s to carry out exploratory research, research and development of RAX-2000 type of domestic adsorbents, and in 2004 completed industrial tests, the indicators are up to or better than the level of imported agents, the price is 1/3 lower than imported agents. When Sinopec introduced the PX-2000 domestic adsorbent separator, foreign companies said they would not allow domestic devices to use domestic adsorbents, otherwise they would no longer provide technical support for the device.
technical barriers set up by foreign companies further stimulate China's ambition to develop independent aromatic complete sets of technology. In 2009, Sinopec set up a technical leadership group of aromatic complete sets headed by Dai Houliang, then senior vice president, and began PX adsorption separation technology. In the same year, PX adsorption separation technology entered Sinopec's "Ten Dragons" project.
researchers raced against time to bury their heads in the experiment, finally completely overcome all the technical problems of PX adsorption separation process, completed the closed loop of aromatic complete sets of technology.
In 2011, Sinopec used PX adsorption separation independent technology to build the first industrial experimental device of 30,000 tons/year in Yangzi Petrochemical, using the latest research and development of RAX-3000 type of domestic adsorbent, product purity, yield and other key indicators have reached the international advanced level.
December 27, 2013, Sinopec's 600,000-ton/year PX adsorption separation plant in Hainan refinery was successfully started, and key technical indicators reached or even exceeded the international level of similar.
In response to the demonized social panic of PX, researchers in the research and development process also highlighted the concept of green low carbon, so that the device's flue gas and greenhouse gas emissions, material consumption have reached the international advanced level, the device is generally in the international leading level, and the lowest energy consumption to become the global aromatic joint device new benchmark.
So far, China has fully mastered the large-scale aromatic joint device full process production technology, becoming the third country after the United States, France to master the technology, for decades the last short plate of the Sinopec industrial chain - aromatics to fill in.2015, Sinopec's high-efficiency environmentally friendly aromatics complete set of technology development and application technology achievements won the National Science and Technology Progress Award, the results of a number of unit technology has been extended to Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and other regions.
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