The plant’s production capacity is 1,000 tons of gasoline per year, with the octane number of 90, corresponding to China’s National Standard VI.
It ensures conversion of both carbon dioxide and hydrogen at the level of almost 95%.
The idea of hydrogenating carbon dioxide into gasoline was proposed by scientists Sun Jian, Ge Qingjie and Wei Jian of DICP in 2017, in the paper published in the Nature Communications.
The process plant itself was first tested in Zoucheng Industrial Park, Shandong Province, in 2020. In October 2021, it underwent a continuous 72-hour on-site evaluation organised by the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation (CPCIF), which proved its effectiveness.
As the institute notes, the production of liquid fuel by using this plant can, on the one hand, provide useful value-added utilization of CO2 and, on the other, create production of environmentally friendly fuel.
At the same time, being very technologically complex, the process of CO2 hydrogenation, as such, is not very energy-intensive. “This technology marks a new phase in the global industrial use of CO2, and provides a new strategy for achieving the carbon neutrality,” Prof. Sun Jian is quoted as saying in the report.
