HOW CHINA IS PROCESSING THEIR ABUNDANCE COAL RESOURCES EFFICIENTLY WITHOUT NEGATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT.
Nigeria is a country with lots of resources both solid and liquid. Before the adoption of crude oil as its major source of revenue, the country had once been an exporter of coal and other solid minerals found in its soil.
While the crude oil dominates the mineral resources found in the sloppy regions of Southern Nigeria, solid minerals also dominate the mineral resources found in the upper regions towards the Northern region.
Coal was the major fuel for industrial machines, cars, power stations, and transportation trains, etc. because of its use in the conversion of water steam used in driving the mechanism of those engines.
Until the discovery of the crude oil, the country was making millions of dollars from the Australia miners operating in the Enugu Coal refinery and other places within the country. It can be said that the coming of crude oil and its boom within the 1970s made the country to become reluctant to the processing of their abundant solid mineral resources.
The Nigeria current affair books usually highlight over fifty solid minerals which can be found within the country. Some of them are:
Iron ore, limestone, marble, granite, gold, silver, clay, aluminum ores, copper ores, tin, zinc, magnesium, manganese, graphite, silicon stones, precious stones, and chromium, etc. while these resources remain untapped, the exploration and exploitation of the crude oil had been on the increase.
However, China has just made the world understand that coal and its refining process is not an outdated technology.
According to the publication made in xinhuanet’s news webpage, the country had been living and depending on coal all these years.
China had been one of the world’s major consumers of coal. Based on its heavy dependence on coal, the effort for refining and processing of coals for efficiency, environmental friendly and reduction of wastage started very early in China even when other countries were adopting the new fuel source called “crude oil” , today China has been rated to have the most efficient coal processing technology that provides fuel for rockets, and engines without any waste, above all the fuel obtained from the coal, had been tested and found to have no negative environmental impact to their environmental or the ozone layer, unlike the carbon monoxide that is usually seen from the fuels coming from the crude oil products.
The publisher said that it took China years of practices, testing, and failures, to come to its successful stage now that has propelled the country to the green light in the eyes of other developed nations.
According to Zhu Yuying, the vice general manager of the Changzheng Engineering Co. Ltd, a company affiliated to China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT); “In China, a large proportion of the grain you eat every day is grown with the chemical fertilizers made up of materials produced by the coal gasification technology”. This simply means that besides obtaining engine fuels from the coal, chemical fertilizers are usually obtained from it as well.
He also went ahead to that many of the clothes and lots of nonmetallic components on cars and other places within China are the product of the processed coal. In other words, during the China’s coal processing nothing is a wastage as every aspect of the chemical processing is closely monitored and any waste will be used for another useful product, they’re helping the country to overcome the high risk of depending on other nations for their domestic products.
The three methods of coal utilization currently used by China are; direct burning, coking, and gasification. Among these three, gasification is the cleanest method but it has the disadvantage of being complicated meanwhile, with it the efficient utilization of coal can be guaranteed.
China’s gasification of coal makes it possible to obtain chemical raw materials and clean fuel, meanwhile, only 7 percent of their coal resources are currently processed this way.
According to Zhu, gasification means transforming the carbon and hydrogen components in coal into carbon monoxide and hydrogen gases, which are raw materials in many chemical products. It occurs under high pressure at a temperature of over 1,400 degrees centigrade. The process requires high-tech facilities to ensure that it is safe, stable and continues because the carbon monoxide gases are inflammable and explosive.
China’s perfection in the gasification technology started at the beginning of the 21st century after a series of failure which had hindered the growth of their chemical industries and the utilization of coal for economic growth. During those periods, the country depended so much on imported technologies which were causing the continuous increase in their production cost.
The source said that the most place China was having a problem was the making of the Gasifier. While in the process, the researchers at a liquid-propellant rocket engine base under the CALVT found the technologies and facilities to produce rocket engine which can be adapted to make the coal gasifier. With that, they were able to develop the first gasifier in 2009 after the five years of research works.
Zhu said that the liquid, solid and gas emissions of the coal gasification can be properly treated and recycled, making the gasification process clean and environment-friendly because of the special technology of the Chinese Gasifier.
HOW CHINESE ARE MAKING THEIR COAL CONSUMPTION TO BE ENVIRONMENT-FRIENDLY
Sulfur which is the major source of air-pollution in the processing coal was given special focus in the coal processing. According to Zhu, “Our technology transforms the Sulphur into hydrogen sulfide, which can be recovered. We can recover more than 99.6% of the sulfur pollutants, while its dust emission can be controlled”
After the successful production of the first coal Gasifier in 2009, the company has produced 87 coal gasifiers which are occupying more than half of China’s pulverized coal gasification market. With more than 20 patents granted to them in the U.S., Europe, and other countries.
Because the type of coal deposit found majorly in China is the Lignite which is a fragile (young) coal with high water content, the company extended their technology to the making of special gasifier for the processing of the Lignite coal for more efficiency and plans to promote the product to countries like Australia, and Indonesia and others, where there abundant deposit of Lignite reserves.
Nigeria can achieve the same if there will enough encouragement to their private sectors and proper funding of their research institutes, reduced dependence on crude oil and placing of values to practically based professions just as China did. Nevertheless, “persistent and patience is a virtue that every nation must have, series of failure while trying to make an invention does not mean failure until the people involved give up their quest, otherwise, Thomas Edison shouldn’t have invented an electric bulb after trying 999 times” that is what can be noticed in the case of China development.
