Water consumption analysis of olefins production from alternative resources in China

Traditional olefins production is heavily dependent on oil. Due to the short supply of oil resources, there are four possible alternative feedstocks in China: (1) coal; (2) natural gas; (3) coke-oven gas; and (4) methanol, while the coal route is dominant among these processes from the perspective of Chinese fossil resources. Comparative study of the four processes is conducted in concerning of water consumption. Results show that the coal route and coke-oven gas route suffer from high water consumption: 44.2 and 55.0 t/t olefins. On the other side, the natural gas route and the oversea-imported methanol route are 27.2 and 7.3 t/t olefins, much lower than the coal route. The coal route is water intensive, but unfortunately, coal chemical plants are mainly located in the arid northern China. To address this predicament, this paper proposes three suggestions: (1) Adjusting water prices system to arouse the enthusiasm of saving water and energy; (2) Promoting olefins production from co-feeding of coal and gas in areas with rich coal and gas; (3) Encouraging to develop methanol-to-olefins plants in coastal areas.