Wuhan EPHE Empowers Jingmen Yuanhan to Successfully Produce High-Quality Ethanol Domestic Core Equipment Drives Industrial Upgrading

        Recently, a major breakthrough has been achieved in China's new energy materials sector: the 200,000-ton-per-annum ethanol plant, a core unit of Jingmen Yuanhan's electrolyte precursor project, has achieved a one-time successful commissioning and smoothly produced high-purity qualified products. Inspections show that all key indicators of the products meet the industry-leading high-end standards, marking a solid step forward for China in the independent and large-scale production of key lithium battery raw materials.

        The successful commissioning of this project is not only the completion of a modern production line, but also a model of in-depth integration and collaborative breakthrough between core technologies and core equipment. Among them, the methyl acetate-crude alcohol heat exchanger and carbon monoxide preheater, R&D and manufactured by Wuhan East Petrochemical Heavy Equipment Co., Ltd., as the core equipment of the entire process unit, have laid an indispensable and solid foundation for the smooth progress of the project and the excellent quality of the products.

        It is reported that these two pieces of equipment are applied to the key DMTE (dimethyl ether carbonylation and methyl acetate hydrogenation to synthesize anhydrous ethanol from syngas) technical unit. This technical route is an important innovation in China's modern coal chemical industry, which can efficiently convert relatively abundant resources such as coal, natural gas and steel mill gas into high-value-added ethanol, and further produce the core solvent for lithium battery electrolytes, boasting great strategic significance. The biggest challenge in transforming advanced laboratory technologies into stable and efficient industrial production often lies in the engineering implementation of core process equipment.

        Relying on its profound technical accumulation and strong manufacturing capabilities, Wuhan East Petrochemical Heavy Equipment Co., Ltd. has successfully overcome this challenge. The company has not only completed the precise design and manufacturing of the equipment, but also realized the perfect industrialization of core proprietary equipment (Patent No.: ZL2024 2 0434987.7) from laboratory to large-scale industrial application. This marks that China's equipment manufacturing enterprises have fully mastered the core equipment technology of DMTE units and acquired the capability to reliably replicate it in large-scale industrial scenarios, breaking the potential dependence on foreign high-end equipment in this field.

       The strong cooperation and joint success of the Jingmen production line and Wuhan manufacturing this time is a vivid example of the in-depth integration of China's high-end manufacturing industry and strategic emerging industries. It not only provides strong capacity and quality support for the booming new energy market, but also offers a replicable "technology + equipment" collaborative innovation model for the subsequent localization research of more key materials. With the stable operation of the project, China's foundation in the global new energy industry competition will be further consolidated.