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Application of Air
Separation Unit in SINOPEC’s
Coal Chemical Business
Gao Ning1, Guo Yan2
(1. Sinopec Great Wall Energy Chemical Co., Ltd.; 2. Sinopec
International Co., Ltd.)
Abstract: With the rapid growth of coal chemical industry in China, the selection and application of
Air Separation Unit (ASU) became very important. As the core unit in coal chemical industry, ASU
will greatly impact the engineering construction and operation/production of coal chemical business. In
this paper, major suppliers of ASU at home and abroad were reviewed, and the major supplying status of
ASU in China was introduced. The ASUs in operation of SINOPEC were listed and discussed. On this
basis, some suggestions of ASU selection strategies were provided on localization, standardization and
operation methods.
Key words: ASU; coal chemical; selection; application
Table 1 Oxygen consumption of different devices adapting typical coal gasification technologies
significant progress in capacity enlargement, product Separation Group (SASPG for short). They are briefly
diversification and system integration. Consequently, the listed as below (Table 2).
scale of a single set of ASU has been increased, the energy Compared with the noted overseas ASU suppliers,
and material consumptions or investment of unit have domestic ASU suppliers are less competitive, and some
been decreased, and the automation level and operation key components like air compressor, high pressure plate
reliability have been improved correspondingly. heat exchanger and special type valves are needed to
Due to the high technical requirements of ASU, import. However, thanks to technology upgrading and
there are only a few enterprises in the world having the huge China market demand, domestic suppliers have
ability to provide large-scale ASU. The major overseas made rapid progress, and now they have equal capacity
enterprises include Air Liquide, Linde AG (Linde for with international competitors on 60,000 Nm3/h or bigger
short) and Air Products & Chemicals Inc. (APCI for ASU. What’s more, some domestic suppliers have made
short). The major domestic enterprises include Hangzhou remarkable export achievements. For example, a 120000
Hangyang Co., Ltd. (Hangyang for short), Kaifeng Air Nm3/h ASU manufactured by Hangyang has been shipped
Separation Group (KFAS for short) and Sichuan Air to Iran in 2014.
Influence of ASUs supplying on coal chemical plate heat exchanger. However, there is one set of air
projects compressor manufactured by Shenyang blower works
Due to the long period of manufacture and huge capital group corporation (Shengu) and one set of steam
investment of ASUs, it will obviously impact the schedule turbine manufactured by Hangzhou Steam Turbine Co.,
and cost of coal chemical projects. The selection and Ltd. (Hangqi). Now the ASUs are under installation
application of ASUs are therefore adhered many interests. and construction, and got high attentions of relative
On one hand, an ASU will take long time, normally companies.
24 to 36 months from order awarding to products output.
An ASU is a complex package including air filtration ASUs successfully selected and applied by
purification system, air compressor system, air pre-cooling Sinopec in coal chemical projects
system, molecular sieve purification system, distillation ASUs selected by Sinopec in coal chemical projects
column system, instrument control system, electric control and plants
system, and other systems. It increases the difficulty in Sinopec’s coal chemical business could be traced back
design and manufacture for ASUs. Generally speaking, a to 2002. From that time Sinopec began to import foreign
smaller ASU by a domestic supplier will take shorter time. advanced coal gasification technology for its raw material
For example, Hangyang has supplied Sinopec Yanshan a optimization projects (mainly change material from oil to
10,000 Nm3/h ASU in only 16 months, which has made coal). With the accomplishment of these projects Sinopec
a domestic record for the shortest supplying time. As for has obtained rich experiences in coal chemical business
the large size of ASUs in coal chemical projects, with for its subsequent coal chemical industry. In recent years,
consideration of the long manufacturing time and the Sinopec has speeded up its coal chemical business. More
complex procedures of transportation, logistics or custom coal gasification plants have been put into operation
clearance, it will take more than 24 months for ASU in its refineries and chemical plants. At the same time,
delivery. it launched several coal-based chemical complexes,
On the other hand, the purchasing values of ASUs with locations at Yinchuan of Ningxia, Ordos of Inner
are always very high, normally from tens or hundreds Mongolia, Huainan of Anhui, Zhundong of Xinjiang and
of millions RMB. Sometimes it could reach the level of Zhijin of Guizhou.
billions. The order of 6 sets of 100,000 Nm3/h ASU, which According to statistics, there are 20 sets of ASUs
was wined by Hangyang for Shenning group’s 4,000,000 under operation in Sinopec in total, including 11 sets for
tons/year indirect coal to liquid project at Ningxia, can be coal gasification plants, which are listed below. It could
taken as a primary example. It was reported that the total be seen that 9 sets of ASUs are supplying hydrogen for
amount of this order including design, supply and service refineries or chemical plants, while 2 sets in Ningxia are
work was as high as 1.7 billion RMB. supplying syngas for downstream synthesis. If classified
Together with the rapid development and large-scale according to the supplier source, it could be found that
trend of coal chemical projects, the ASUs have to meet there are 5 sets of ASUs are domestic (all supplied by
higher requirements than other industries in terms of Hangyang) and 6 sets of ASUs are imported (supplied by
investment, energy consumption and operation stability. APCI, Air Liquide and Linde respectively) (Table 3).
The oxygen productivity of required ASUs is generally Regarding to the coal-based chemical complexes under
between 70,000 Nm3/h and 80,000 Nm3/h or even as high construction, Sinopec has put some orders for ASU. In
as 100,000 Nm3/h, and they are normally imported from Zhongtianhechuang project in Inner Mongolia, six sets
international enterprises or cooperative manufactured of 82,000 Nm3/h ASU were awarded to Air Liquide. In
by both domestic and international suppliers. At the Zhongan project in Anhui, three sets of 67,000 Nm3/h ASU
same time, domestic ASU enterprises are also making were awarded to Linde AG. It was announced that there
rapid progress in technology and manufacturing ability, were other ASU purchasing order under consideration
striving to reach the world advanced level. The above for Zhundong projects in Xinjiang and Zhijin projects in
mentioned ASUs supplied by Hangyang for Shenning Guizhou.
group can be referred as an example. In all 6 sets of
100,000 Nm3/h ASUs, most of the critical equipments Influence of ASUs operation on coal gasification
or parts are imported like air compressor unit, turbine plants
expander, cryogenic liquid pump or high-pressure The operation stability of ASUs has important