On September 12, the world’s largest hydrogen-from-coal PSA unit under construction, provided by SWRDICI (Southwest Research & Design Institute of the Chemical Industry) with proprietary technology, a complete set of design and key equipment was successfully put into operation one time. It is an extra-large 1.8 million t/a ethylene glycol project in SHCCIG Yulin Chemical Co., Ltd. Upon its commissioning and operation, it will further alleviate the external dependence of China’s ethylene glycol industry, and promote the process of clean and efficient coal conversion.

In the production process of coal-to-ethylene glycol, the required raw material industrial hydrogen (hydrogen volume fraction ≥ 99.9%) is obtained by the proprietary pressure swing adsorption (PSA) method of SWRDICI. The PSA technology of SWRDICI has become the mainstream for hydrogen purification due to its characteristics of high product purity, high recovery rate, low energy consumption, simple operation and high level of automation. Compared with similar units using foreign technology, the hydrogen recovery rate of the PSA unit in this project is increased by about 3%, and the hydrogen production is up about 16,000 standard cubic meters per hour. Calculated based on the annual operating time of 8,000 hours, the annual hydrogen production will increase by 128 million standard cubic meters, which will reduce coal consumption by about 89,600 tons, cut carbon dioxide emissions by about 220,000 tons, and create an additional economic value of over 100 million yuan.

SWRDICI is the founder in China’s PSA field and a synthesizer of engineering. Its self-developed large-scale PSA system engineering technology has substituted and surpassed foreign technologies, and it has built thousands of various PSA hydrogen extraction units. The R&D and application of a complete set of technologies for comprehensive utilization of industrial exhaust gas with PSA technology as the core can not only achieve resource recovery, pollution control and carbon emission reduction, but also lead the development of gas adsorption/desorption technology, and will also contribute to reaching China’s carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals.