CHOREN News

Modern coal gasification technology originated in Germany and has been further developed in China especially from 2000. With the continuous expansion of China's coal gasification market, technological innovation and increasingly active competition, the German company CHOREN entered the Chinese market with its innovative technology at the right time and quickly opened up a new world.

On July 24, 2019, Shaanxi Coal Group Yulin Chemical Company held a groundbreaking ceremony for the first phase of the 1.8 million t/y ethylene glycol project of the coal processing and new chemical feedstock production demonstration project in Yulin Qingshui Industrial Park. The world's largest coal chemical project under construction has moved from the planning stage to the construction stage, which has attracted the attention of the global industry. What many people may not know is that the gasification plant of this project is not designed and built by the main domestic suppliers of coal gasification technology, but the CCG multi-burner pulverized coal gasification technology is designed and installed by the German CHOREN Industrietechnik GmbH, which was relatively unknown until then.

The gasification unit produces more than 700,000 standard cubic meters of syngas per hour. It is currently the world's largest CHOREN dry powder coal gasification demonstration plant. It uses five lines of CHOREN CCG pulverized coal gasifiers with a daily coal feed of 2,000 tons each. The effective gas volume per gasifier is 140,000 cubic meters per hour and the total plant will be completed and commissioned by the end of June 2021.

CHOREN became even more famous in China as a result, and naturally attracted a lot of attention. What is the history of CHOREN Company? What kind of technical features and expertise are defining? Will it become a new fixed star in the highly competitive Chinese coal gasification market? With these questions, the author paid a detailed visit to CHOREN.

In this way, when a technology is verified by an industrial project, there is an opportunity to introduce a proprietary technology at the relevant stages of a project. Among other things, this has also led to a large number of domestic coal gasification technologies.

CHOREN's situation has been very stable for years, which is closely related to the fact that financing through Chinese capital is based on a deep understanding of the Chinese market. Shan Yubing, Chairman of CHOREN Future Energy, has been doing business in China for many years, he knows that only by appearing and acting together can effectively be avoided domestic intellectual property infringement and prevent the appearance of potential rogue competitors. Therefore, under the leadership of Shan Yubing, CHOREN Company entered into a strategic partnership with Yankuang Kaiyang Chemical Co., Ltd. and China Tianchen Engineering Co., Ltd. (the designer of the Kaiyang project) and formed an alliance to develop markets and acquire projects. His dedication and expertise have yielded good results in the form of successful projects to date.

Nevertheless, there are times when this advantage-balancing strategy fails. The equipment partner for the gasifiers in the Yankuang-Kaiyang project is a company in Liaoning. With the experience gained from participating in this project, the company is ready to launch its own gasifier, which has the same three burners as the CHOREN gasifier.

The conflict broke out during the tender for the Shuanghuan coal-ammonia synthesis project in Yihua, Hubei. At that time, a company in Liaoning approached Hubei Yihua and proposed to provide gasification technology and gasifiers at a low price, which put enormous pressure on CHOREN Company, which negotiated cooperation with Hubei Yihua.

To this end, CHOREN Company officials personally traveled to Liaoning and contacted the concerned enterprises through the local government with the hope that both sides could turn the war into jade and silk. According to the consistent purpose of benefit sharing, CHOREN Company believes that it needs a cooperative equipment manufacturer. If the other party gives up the production of imitation carburetors, CHOREN gasifier business can entrust to this manufacturer and form a strategic alliance together.

CHOREN was astonished to learn that the other party denied that its own gasifier and CHOREN's gasifier had serious similarities and claimed that it produced a top one-burner gasifier that was different from CHOREN's top multi-burner gasifier. Faced with the other party's sophistry and the company's continued lobbying of Hubei Yihua, it was difficult for CHOREN to take countermeasures for a while. Fortunately, Hubei Yihua refrained from rashly deploying the technology of unknown origin. This whole process ultimately resulted in a loss to CHOREN of nearly 10 million yuan in technology license fees.

Since CHOREN is a well-known German company, the former German designers originally planned to intervene with relevant Chinese parties through Germany to put pressure on the infringing company. Considering that Chinese in China exclusively represent CHOREN Company, this could damage China's international image. After several deliberations, the management of CHOREN Company finally convinced the German team to abandon the decision to protest and file a lawsuit.

CHOREN has exclusive and patented technology, has a large number of industrial applications and largely has the original CHOREN technical team. The gasification technology is still being updated and developed, so this infringement of protected rights did not affect CHOREN's market position. However, this incident also made CHOREN deeply aware that there is still a long way to go to strengthen and ensure intellectual property protection in China.

CHOREN starts a new stage of deep integration of CHOREN gasification technology in China

CHOREN gasifier belongs to the technical level of pulverized coal gasification. The international "Shell gasifier" is also the highest level of pulverized coal gasification in parallel with the CHOREN technology. Although each process has its own advantages, the CHOREN gasifier is unique with its multi-burner technology of three pulverized coal burners placed on the gasifier head.

The "CHOREN gasifier" is an original German technology with decades of R&D and operation experience. Since the completion of the acquisition of the technology, CHOREN's most important decision has been to retain and fully integrate the original German technical team so that the continuous improvement of CHOREN gasifier technology and the innovative engineering solution of new problems during project verification is and will remain at a high level.

In the years following the acquisition of the unique pulverized coal gasification technology, CHOREN has carried out the further development of gasifiers to higher throughputs and expects the industrial verification of the CCG600 gasifier with a daily processing capacity of 2,000 tons of coal in the near future. At the same time, the development of an even more efficient 3,000 tons per day gasifier has been completed and its practical application is being prepared. Here, too, the proven multi-burner concept with installation at the gasifier head is used.

In terms of technological research and development, CHOREN decided to further increase the daily processing capacity of the gasifier, improve the gasification efficiency and the compatibility of coal types so that the technology can be applied to a wider range of coal types. On the other hand, CHOREN Company also plans to introduce innovations in the field of possible feedstocks to enable customers to use their equipment universally, and at the same time expand the field of application of CHOREN gasification technology.

Taking the 1.8 million tons/year coal-to-ethylene glycol project of Shaanxi Coal Group's Yulin Chemical Company as an example, 5 CHOREN gasifiers are planned for this project, one of which uses the latest pulverized coal burner developed by CHOREN with injection of organically contaminated liquids (e.g. wastewater). It is also the world's first industrial demonstration project of this technology. Through this new technology, the wastewater generated by the project can be recycled and used as water in the front-end gasification process, which not only saves valuable water resources but also reduces environmental protection investment in the back-end.

Based on this idea, CHOREN Company has developed and completed the gasification technology within the cooling screen reactor with three burners for coal and water injection, mounted on the gasifier head, which is congruent with the original pulverized coal gasification technology, and thus can greatly improve the gasification efficiency of the chemical coal industry. At the same time, it will reduce environmental problems caused by polluted wastewater and improve the environmental performance of gasification technology. In addition, CHOREN also developed gasification technology for residual oil and gaseous hydrocarbons, extending CHOREN gasification technology to applications other than coal.

In the future development of the Chinese market, CHOREN adheres to high-end international standards in technology, but in the actual promotion of the market, CHOREN's private company status is often a disadvantage. This is because many manufacturers and customers are state-owned enterprises, which often involves the use of local technologies when projects are awarded. Currently, the gasification plant of the first phase of Shaanxi Coal Group's Yulin Chemical's 1.8 million t/a coal-to-ethylene glycol project uses CHOREN CCG's multi-burner dry powder coal gasification technology. The strategic cooperation between CHOREN and Shaanxi Coal Group and other central enterprises has led to the study of a variety of cooperation modes for the local implementation of foreign technologies. Because of this, the cooperation has been jointly strengthened and the project has been optimized, which is also in line with CHOREN's "win-win" business philosophy - mutually beneficial cooperation.
CHOREN Company is originated in Germany and has grown significantly by expanding its operations to China. CHOREN will join hands with Shaanxi Coal Group and other key enterprises to further integrate the CHOREN's efficient pulverized coal gasification technology into the Chinese market and support China's revolutionary transformation to clean and efficient use of coal and energy.