Low-carbon chemicals that the Chinese government encourages the development of mainly include the following aspects:
New energy chemical industry: including biochemical industry and hydrogen energy chemical industry. Bio-chemicals use renewable biological resources as raw materials to produce chemical products through biotechnology, fermentation technology and other production techniques, reducing reliance on traditional petrochemical resources and reducing carbon emissions. Hydrogen chemical, on the other hand, uses hydrogen energy as an energy source to produce various chemical products through the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen, which is a clean energy chemical technology.
Green Chemical: Including environmentally friendly materials, environmentally friendly production processes, etc. Characterised by environmental friendliness and low carbon emission, green chemistry adopts low energy consumption and low pollution production processes and raw materials, and is committed to reducing the impact of chemical production on the environment.
Circular economy chemical industry: including waste resource utilisation, energy recycling and so on. With the core concept of resource saving and reuse, Circular Economy Chemical realises the recycling of resources through the recovery and reuse of waste, and reduces the consumption of raw materials and waste emissions.
Energy saving and emission reduction technology: including energy efficient equipment, clean production process, etc. Energy-saving and emission reduction technologies achieve green development of chemical production by improving production efficiency and reducing energy consumption and emissions.
These low-carbon chemical fields are the key development directions that the Chinese government is actively promoting under the goals of addressing climate change and achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality.
According to the newly announced policy, we understand that the green and low-carbon production related to chemical industry mainly includes the following aspects:
Firstly, the equipment and technology transformation involved in chemical production mainly includes the latest equipment and the latest production technology.
It mainly includes energy-efficient equipment, energy-saving and carbon-reducing renovation equipment, energy-efficiency upgrading equipment, process improvement and process optimisation equipment, digitalisation and intelligent upgrading, and greenhouse gas control technology and equipment in the chemical production process. Most of these equipments and technologies are in line with the participating equipments in the chemical production process, as well as the environmental and low-carbon treatment equipments in the late stage of production. If the enterprises invest in the construction of these equipments or adopt such technologies, they are all in line with the requirements of the state-supported green and low-carbon chemical production, which is an important policy support for the investment and approval of the project.
Second, the chemical production process and after the process of environmental protection technology, equipment and projects, etc.
Mainly includes advanced environmental protection equipment and raw materials manufacturing, air pollution control technology and equipment, water pollution control technology and equipment, soil pollution control technology and equipment, other pollution control and environmental integrated political treatment. These equipment, technologies and projects, for environmental governance has a positive and important contribution, such as sewage treatment, including the prevention and control of groundwater pollution, industrial parks water pollution centralised management. If the chemical enterprise production process involves environmental protection aspects of the equipment, or industrial parks in the environmental centralised treatment equipment, for the chemical production of environmental treatment has a positive effect, and in line with the direction of national support, to help the normal declaration of chemical projects.
Third, chemical resource recycling projects, technologies and equipment, etc.
Chemical resource recycling, including but not limited to mineral resources, solid waste resources, waste resources, water resources, etc., including the reuse of these resources, equipment manufacturing and the latest technology. According to Pingtou, most of the industrial chain of China’s chemical production has always been a single-cycle model, i.e., for the termination of consumption after the end products, resulting in the inability to achieve the reuse of resources. And this national support for recycling of relevant resources can effectively drive the recycling of the chemical industry, such as the recycling of waste plastics, but also includes the recycling of waste daily necessities in the rubbish, as well as the use of chemical production of waste, etc., can increase the process of resource recycling in chemical production.
In my opinion, resource recycling in the chemical industry is a very complex and important responsibility. Chemical production always relies on the development of fossil energy as the basis, and the inability to achieve the trend of resource recycling will inevitably lead to the transitional use of resources and environmental pollution. Therefore, in order to achieve resource recycling in the chemical production process, it is necessary to increase investment and participation in several latitudes, such as policy support, technological research and innovation, circular economy system, industrial chain synergy, monitoring and evaluation system, international market cooperation, etc. Achieving resource recycling in the chemical industry requires the joint efforts of the government, enterprises and all sectors of society.
Fourth, green energy and low-carbon transformation is the foundation and guarantee of green chemical industry.
The latest policy, announced the direction of the low-carbon transition of green energy, including new energy and clean energy equipment manufacturing, clean energy facilities construction and operation, traditional energy, clean low-carbon transition and other latitude, covering the development of new energy and the transformation of traditional energy. For the transformation of traditional energy, mainly including coal cleaner production, use, and coal chemical production process of low-carbon transformation and other directions, such as coal and other high-carbon clear source development and utilisation of the whole aspect of the clear.
I believe that the low-carbon transformation of traditional energy sources is of great significance, and can drive investment in such industries, promote the development of new industries, as well as reduce carbon emissions, improve environmental quality and other roles.
Fifth, green upgrading and transformation of chemical production infrastructure
This includes the energy-saving transformation of chemical production buildings and the green energy-saving transformation of chemical logistics, which put forward low-carbon requirements for the logistics and buildings of the chemical industry chain. The energy-saving transformation of chemical production buildings, such as building energy-saving in the production process of chemical projects, as well as the construction and operation of low-carbon buildings, not only for the green and low-carbon requirements of chemical installations, but also for the relevant buildings serving chemical production, also puts forward a certain degree of green and low-carbon requirements, which can be said that the scope of low-carbon requirements in the field of chemical industry is further expanded.
In addition, the green logistics of chemical production, including the construction of green warehousing facilities, green logistics technology and equipment applications, etc., can achieve the green and low-carbon operation of the entire chemical industry chain. At present, there are still numerous high-carbon logistics methods for chemical products in China, such as large fuel oil transporters, fuel oil refuelling ships, fuel oil loading equipment, etc. It is still a long time before these areas are covered by green energy. Therefore, if we want to realise the carbon footprint traceability in the chemical industry chain, we need to further clarify the carbon sources and emissions in the whole chemical industry chain, and logistics and warehousing are the easily neglected links in the chemical industry chain, which need to be paid more attention to.
Finally, although this new policy specifies the trend of green and low-carbon chemical industry chain, which is a big cost burden for chemical production, standing in the perspective of long-term sustainable development of all mankind, green and low-carbon is the inevitable development direction and trend of the chemical industry, and it is also the responsibility of every chemical enterprise that must be considered at present. It is hoped that under the guidance of China’s policy, the innovation and progress of China’s chemical industry technology can lead chemical enterprises to quickly step into the green and low-carbon sustainable development path.