China National Chemical Engineering Group Corporation began the construction of an air separation unit for a local technological enterprise in Turpan, a city in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The unit is a crucial supporting part of the world’s largest single-train coal-to-ethylene glycol project under construction, which is expected to annually produce 2.4 million metric tons of coal-to-ethylene glycol of sufficient quality to be used as material for high-quality fiber.
The air separation unit is designed with a capacity of 120,000 normal cubic meters, ranking it among China’s largest single-train air separation units. It supplies critical gaseous feedstock for core facilities, such as gasification and synthesis units. The progress of its construction has a direct bearing on the completion of the full industrial chain and the punctual operation of the whole project.
Once operational, the coal-to-ethylene glycol project will make use of the geographic advantages of Xinjiang as the core area of the Silk Road Economic Belt to promote the transformation of coal from a conventional fuel into high-end chemical feedstock and a new kind of fiber material. It will build a high-end, green and integrated industrial chain, turning Turpan into a strategic hub and industrial growth pole that benefits Northwest China and Central Asia.
(Executive editor: Zuo Shihan)
