Using coal without burning coal helps reduce air pollution
A city's energy structure affects energy conservation and emission reduction, and even more so the blue skies of the capital. As the world's largest energy producer and consumer, China must pursue high-end development of its energy industry as the need to protect resources and the environment becomes ever more pressing. Driven by special science and technology programs, Beijing has accelerated research on key technologies and core equipment for energy development and utilization, and next year it will also initially complete 8 energy technology innovation bases, including the Future Science and Technology City and the PetroChina Science and Technology Park.
Spent batteries from new energy vehicles can store solar power
Vehicle emission reduction has made Beijing's skies bluer, and the development of new energy vehicles has played an indispensable role. Beijing's new energy vehicle sector is developing very rapidly.
With the growth of new energy vehicles, a large number of power batteries need to be recycled. After a new energy vehicle has been used for a few years, the battery's range and performance decline. This means that in the coming years, due to the vigorous development of new energy vehicles in Beijing, the problem of recycling and utilizing new energy vehicle batteries will soon follow. Retired power batteries can be used in cascading applications as energy storage batteries. How to make good use of cascaded batteries has become a difficult problem that needs to be solved.
A high-tech enterprise in Beijing proposed using new technology to design solar power generation in outer suburban areas to charge electric vehicles. But some outer suburban areas have obvious seasonal variations, and the electricity generated cannot be fully used in the off-season. The electricity generated by photovoltaic panels can be sent back to the grid. If there is no grid in the area, the solar power can be stored in energy storage batteries, and at this point the cascaded batteries retired from new energy electric vehicles can be used for photovoltaic energy storage.
Now this idea has become a reality. Three sites have already been built at scenic spots in Fangshan District, Beijing. Among them, the solar charging station in Fozizhuang Township, Fangshan, Beijing, was put into operation in August this year.
Industry experts point out that this provides key technology demonstration and practical experience for promoting and applying solar/storage charging stations in scenic areas or shallow mountainous areas at the ends of the power grid in China. With the development of new energy electric vehicles, this technology and management model are expected to be promoted nationwide.
"Gasification" and clean utilization of industrial coal for combustion to ease polluting emissions
Industrial coal for combustion in China is mainly used in industrial boilers and kilns, concentrated in the building materials, metallurgy, chemical and other industries, and is an important part of China's coal utilization. The industrial boilers and kilns currently in operation generally suffer from problems such as small capacity, low efficiency and large emissions of air pollutants.
A technology of "using coal without burning coal" has emerged. It uses "coal gasification" equipment to produce clean fuel gas and carries out "coal-to-gas" conversion of existing industrial boilers and kilns, achieving high thermal efficiency and low pollutant emissions. However, as a "coal-to-gas" technology, the relatively mature solid-slag gasification technology on the market has technical problems such as low gasification intensity and large wastewater output, while liquid-slag gasification technology, although having higher gasification intensity, has certain shortcomings in coal adaptability and operational stability.
With the support of the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, a Beijing research institute successfully developed the "Coal Science Furnace" pressurized fixed-bed liquid-slag gasification technology and built a pilot R&D platform, with all main performance indicators reaching the international advanced level.
The gasification technology developed by the project team can produce clean industrial fuel gas, which can serve as a clean gaseous fuel for existing coal-fired industrial boilers and kilns and ease the serious problem of air pollutant emissions. It can also achieve clean utilization of China's abundant high-ash-fusion-temperature coal types and promote the upgrading of traditional solid-slag gasification technology. In the future, the project will further improve the automation level, safety and stability of the equipment and gradually move toward industrial application, advancing the large-scale transformation and upgrading of coal-fired industrial boilers and kilns in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and even across the country.
Safety inspection of oil and gas pipelines, conquering new technologies
The safety of oil and gas pipelines concerns the safety of citizens' lives and property. To grasp the health status of pipelines and prevent pipeline accidents, in-pipeline inspection equipment is needed for patrol inspection. Traditional deformation detection equipment mostly uses contact detection methods and can only detect pipeline dent deformation, not bulging deformation; non-contact deformation detection equipment can detect both pipeline dent deformation and bulging deformation. China's existing, under-construction and planned high-pressure, large-flow long-distance oil and gas pipelines have an urgent need for this. However, China's oil and gas pipeline inspection started late, and its equipment level is relatively backward, with 2/3 of the domestic market occupied by foreign companies.
With the support of the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, the project team of the research institute developed self-propelled inspection equipment for long-distance oil and gas pipelines, broke through technical difficulties such as long-distance eddy current sensors, multi-sensor interference, environmental influence and detector error correction, and completed the development of a multi-channel eddy current pipeline deformation detector.
The project team will continue to optimize the detection performance, power consumption indicators and reliability of the self-propelled inspection equipment and gradually move it toward application. Ultimately, it will promote the replacement of traditional in-line detectors by new non-contact in-line inspection equipment, improve the health level of China's oil and gas pipelines and extend their service life. (Reporter Han Na)