China adopts cutting-edge technologies for cleaner energy use

Cutting-edge technologies are helping China to use fossil fuel energy more cleanly and efficiently, while replacing these energy sources with cleaner hydrogen energy and other non-fossil fuel energy resources, as the country strives to reduce its carbon emissions and achieve carbon neutrality.

Photo shows aramid fiber products from a coal-to-liquid project in northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Wang Peng)

Chinese scientists have been developing new technologies to make better use of coal, an energy source that accounts for nearly 60 percent of China’s primary energy consumption, to make chemical byproducts all while reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Coal chemical processing has become one of the two main methods for coal utilization in China, according to Bao Xinhe, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) who also serves as president of the University of Science and Technology of China. However, this method also releases carbon dioxide due to the use of coal and consumes water because of a gasification process that produces raw chemical materials and transforms the carbon and hydrogen components in coal into hydrogen gases.

To solve these problems, scientists are drawing experiences from the process for separating crude oil into different fractions and converting oil into raw chemical materials, including olefins and aromatics, through the use of distillation and catalytic cracking engineering technology, Bao said. This method can lower water consumption and generate less carbon dioxide.

Researchers have developed innovative oil refining methods to raise the efficiency of oil utilization. Experts estimated that 80 percent of crude oil will be converted into raw chemical materials in the future, which would significantly reduce the direct burning of oil.

Photo shows a photovoltaic power station with an energy storage system in Shigatse city, southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Liu Hongming)

Meanwhile, researchers are also developing new methods to produce green hydrogen, hydrogen fuel that is created using renewable energy instead of fossil fuels as well as through the electrolysis of water.

As a kind of clean energy, hydrogen has a huge potential in industries such as the transportation sector. But storage and transportation challenges need to be addressed to promote the large-scale use of hydrogen.

A team of researchers led by Li Can, a CAS academician, has developed technologies to produce green hydrogen by using renewable energy through the electrolysis of water, meanwhile the carbon dioxide and hydrogen can be converted to transportable green liquid fuels such as methanol.

Thanks to these breakthroughs, China built the world’s first demonstration project for direct solar fuel synthesis, and is advancing its industrial production of methanol converted from solar energy, Li said.

The Chinese science and technology community and industrial players are also exploring high-capacity, safe and stable energy storage technologies to improve energy efficiency, and have made some breakthroughs in this area.