Tongbo Alkalis: Vital Cyclic Economy      

Tongbo Anpeng Alkalis Ore Co., Ltd. (Tongbo Alkalis, former Anpeng Alkalis Ore Co., Ltd.), located in Nanyang , Henan province, was a joint venture built by Inner Mongolian Yuanxing Natural Alkali Co., Ltd., Henan Petroleum Exploration Bureau of Sinopec Group and the State-owned Asset Operation Co., Ltd. of Tongbo county in 1998, holding 60 %, 35%, 5% of stock respectively. The company uses the new technique of sesqui alkali to produce soda ash containing low salt. At present, the company is operating two trona-based soda ash production units with capacities of 200 000 t/a and 400 000 t/a respectively. The company reports that its trona reserve is more than 50% of the national total. In the third quarter of 2008, Tongbo Alkalis produced 147 700 tons of soda ash, reaping a sales revenue of RMB230 million.

Cyclic economy is necessary for sustainable development   

Tongbo Alkalis has more than 75 million tons of trona reserves. Early on, the company adopted monohydrate sodium carbonate technology to process trona, using caustic soda to neutralize sodium bicarbonate. But the massive amount of caustic mud (mainly containing calcium chloride and calcium carbonate) produced in the production of caustic soda could not be used again and seriously polluted the surrounding environment. The high cost of treating pollutants results in a high production cost, thus weakening competitiveness, so the company cannot reach an economic scale of production and cannot earn any profit. In 1996, Inner Mongolian Yuanxing Natural Alkali Co., Ltd. invested RMB400 million for technical renovation of Anpeng Alkalis Ore Co., Ltd., and constructed a 200 000 t/a heavy soda ash project with a clean process that supplies waste mother liquor containing higher salt to the sodium silicate producers for producing hyperhaline alkali.

Trial way to develop circular economy   

Through technical renovation, zero emission has been reached in production, for soda ash dregs and waste water. However, the pulverized coal ash discharged from the company's thermal power plant and carbon dioxide discharged from the production of soda ash can neither be recovered nor reused. The amount of waste mother liquor increased with the expanded production scale and is too large to be digested only in the sodium silicate production. Therefore the company seeks new ways to produce other products itself, such as: sodium bicarbonate and edible soda and so on. Since the project of 200 000 t/a natural heavy soda ash with low salt was put on stream in 2001, the company has explored further utilization of waste mother liquor, pulverized coal ash, waste gas - carbon dioxide. During 2003 to 2005, it constructed the 35 000 t/a and 100 000t/a crude soda ash projects and a spirulina cultivation project covered 66.7 hectares, which mainly used the mother liquor (high-salt brine) to make alkali into crude soda ash, further for cultivation in spirulina breeding farms. Construction of the 400 000t/a heavy soda ash project started in October 2004 and was completed in March 2006. The project will recycle the mother liquor and carbon dioxide generated in the evaporation process of wet decomposition and calcinations of sodium bicarbonate as raw materials for producing soda ash, and will use the boiler combustion pulverized coal ash as raw materials of cement clinkers and ingredients of ash slag bricks. At the same time, the company carried on technical collaboration based on trona resources and the niter resources with China Tianchen Chemical Engineering Corp., Tianjin University and Sinopec Tianjin Petrochemical Company to carry out the program and energy research on a trona chemical ecology industrial park. They jointly conducted a preliminary exploration on a number of ecological chains, such as: coal to power to pulverized coal ash to cement clinker and ash slag brick; thermal energy to wet decomposition of alkali brine and calcined gas (carbon dioxide) to baking soda (sodium bicarbonate); thermal energy to soda ash to soda ash mother liquor (containing salt) to crude soda ash to spirulina cultivation and so on. They endeavored to utilize the trona resources entirely, which furthered the development of cyclic economy. At present, Anpeng Alkali already has an integrated chain of "coal - thermal energy - electric power - soda ash - crude alkali - cultivation," and has preliminarily formed an eco-industrial park and partly realized the cyclic economy.

Inner Mongolian Yuanxing Natural Alkali Co., Ltd. was established in 1996 and was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 1997. It changed its name to Inner Mongolian Yuanxing Energy Co., Ltd. in 2007. At present, it mainly produces chemicals such as methanol, soda ash and baking soda. In the first half of 2008, its operating income was RMB 1.046 billion, an increase of 105.79% over the same period of 2007. Its gross margin of products increased to 45.5% in the first half of 2008 from 29.5% in the first half of 2007.