On December 16th, it was reported that the world's first 36000 Nm3/d helium containing coalbed methane extraction high-purity helium plant, constructed by the China Academy of Coal Sciences and Coal Sciences, successfully started operation at Yaojie Coal and Power Group Gansu Kobede Coal and Coalbed Methane Development Technology Co., Ltd., producing high-purity helium with a purity of over 99.999%. This marks China's complete mastery of the helium containing coalbed methane extraction process and its engineering technology, China has made significant breakthroughs in the technology of extracting high-purity helium from helium containing coalbed methane.
Helium is one of the rare strategic materials essential for the development of national defense, military industry, and high-tech industries. It is known as the "golden gas" and has extremely wide applications, covering many fields such as aerospace, national defense, high-end medical, semiconductor manufacturing, and large scientific equipment. Although China has abundant resources, its helium resources are relatively scarce, accounting for only 2% of the global resources. However, its consumption ranks second in the world. At the same time, due to the difficulty of helium extraction and the inability to obtain it through chemical synthesis, its dependence on foreign countries is extremely high. At present, extracting helium from natural gas is the only industrial production method.
The Haishiwan coal mine coalbed methane, to which Yaojie Coal Power Group belongs, is an extremely rare helium containing coalbed methane resource in China. For many years, this coalbed methane has been used as industrial fuel, but the helium resource has not been effectively utilized. How to extract helium from the complex composition coalbed methane resource is a practical challenge facing Yaojie Coal Power Group.
Coalbed methane, as a unconventional natural gas, has a more complex composition compared to natural gas, making it difficult to extract helium gas. Especially for the Haishiwan coalbed methane mine of Yaojie Coal Power Group, which also contains a large amount of carbon dioxide, it is even more difficult to separate and extract helium. To address this issue, since 2021, the Coal Science Institute has been collaborating with Yaojie Coal Power Group to carry out scientific research and development on helium extraction technology from helium containing coalbed methane.
With the deep technical accumulation of the Coal Science Institute in the field of gas separation and purification, the research team integrates multiple key gas separation technologies such as pressure swing adsorption and membrane separation. Unlike conventional natural gas liquefaction and helium extraction, they have pioneered the "pressure swing adsorption+membrane separation+refining and purification" coalbed methane helium extraction process, overcoming the decarbonization and concentration of multi-component coalbed methane through pressure swing adsorption The key technologies for integrated separation of helium extraction and the coupling of membrane separation and efficient refining and purification have increased the purity of helium from 0.1% to over 99.999%, with a maximum of over 99.9999%. High purity helium products have been obtained, achieving the engineering scale up application of "producing high-purity helium from helium containing coalbed methane". Not only that, continuing to use the helium extracted coalbed methane as a power generation feed gas enables efficient utilization of both coalbed methane and helium resources, creating economic, social, and environmental benefits for enterprises and providing a new way to obtain helium resources.
As an important supporting unit in the clean and efficient utilization of coal in the group company, the Coal Research Institute undertakes the historical mission of promoting the low-carbon transformation of the coal industry. With the support of major national science and technology projects, it continues to deeply cultivate the field of coalbed methane utilization. Through process technology development, pilot scale up verification, and application of achievement transformation engineering, it independently develops pressure swing adsorption concentration technology, covering the full concentration range of coalbed methane, and realizes multi-channel coalbed methane utilization and comprehensive utilization of multiple products. In the future, the promotion and application of the complete set of helium extraction technology by the Institute of Coal Science to the field of natural gas helium extraction will increase the supply channels of helium resources in China, providing strong support for the development of industries such as cryogenic superconductivity, semiconductor manufacturing, high-temperature gas cooled reactors, and large scientific devices in China.
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