Reporter of China Industrial Network Zhu Jieying

"Scientific and technological workers should stand up to the sky when doing research projects. They should do high-level scientific research. They should focus on the transformation of achievements and serve the local economy!" He Gaohong, president and professor of Panjin Industrial Technology Research Institute of Dalian University of Technology, and a national famous scientific and technological entrepreneur, took this as his mission.

He Gaohong, president and professor of Panjin Industrial Technology Research Institute of Dalian University of Technology, and a national famous scientific and technological innovation craftsman. Photograph provided by respondents

As the director of the State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemical Industry, He Gaohong is the first doctor in the field of gas membrane separation technology in China. For many years, she has been devoting herself to the research of membrane and membrane process, developed the cascade coupling recovery technology and process package with full independent intellectual property rights, successfully realized industrial application, solved the problems of backward technology and low recovery efficiency in China's refinery gas treatment and VOC recovery, and achieved the leap forward development of China's membrane technology with its core achievements reaching the international advanced level, It has made important contributions to China's VOCs membrane separation technology from following to leading the world.

What is gas membrane separation technology?

"Refineries and refining enterprises will produce a lot of tail gas in the refining process, which contains a lot of hydrogen. At that time, the most common treatment method was to burn off the tail gas as fuel gas, or use cryogenic recovery at a temperature of nearly - 200 degrees, but this is both energy consuming and inefficient." He Gaohong gave an example.

In order to recover these hydrogen, it is necessary to develop a membrane for selective permeation, that is, to let small molecules of hydrogen pass through preferentially, and other gases are trapped. The biggest problem to be solved is the optimization of complex multi-component process design. At that time, even in foreign countries, there was no effective solution to this problem.

In order to solve the technical backwardness of refinery gas treatment in China, He Gaohong led her team to create a method of quasi triangular phase diagram design for membrane coupling process, establish the design optimization theory and a series of collaborative strengthening process packages, and realize industrial application.

He Gaohong is working. Photograph provided by respondents

The cascade coupling recovery technology and process package with completely independent intellectual property rights has designed and built the first membrane coupling refinery gas comprehensive utilization unit in China for Zhenhai Refining&Chemical, with an annual recovery of 10000 tons of hydrogen, 140000 tons of light hydrocarbon and naphtha. Relevant technologies are widely used by PetroChina and Sinopec. In 2014, the largest petrochemical tail gas separation unit in China was designed and built for Dalian Petrochemical. The cumulative economic benefits of the application of this technology in three projects of Dalian Petrochemical, Liaoyang Petrochemical and Liaohe Petrochemical have exceeded 2.7 billion yuan. This scientific research achievement also won the second prize of the 2010 National Science and Technology Progress Award.

He Gaohong's second national science and technology progress award is to create a high-performance anti swelling reverse size screening composite membrane.

If the coupling process of membrane triangular phase diagram design solves the problem of small molecules, the reverse size screening high-performance membrane solves the problem of large molecules, that is, let large molecules penetrate and intercept small molecules, which is very difficult.

He Gaohong led his team to overcome difficulties, and finally developed a high-performance swelling resistant composite membrane that preferentially penetrates macromolecules, breaking the international monopoly, making China the third VOCs separation membrane producer, and recovering 1.53 million tons of olefins in industrial applications. This scientific research result has greatly reduced the price of this kind of membrane in China.

Anti swelling high-performance membrane, cascade coupling recovery technology and process package, refinery gas centralized cascade recovery method... These scientific research achievements that ordinary people understand are extremely difficult, but He Gaohong has invested a high degree of enthusiasm, focusing on scientific research innovation and application for ten years.

Recently, the China Education, Science, Culture, Health and Sports Union released a list of 20 trees selected for the first "National Science and Technology Innovation Masters". He Gaohong was one of them. She said: "Next, we should focus on environmental protection and energy conservation and other fields to achieve win-win results in production, education and research, so that more scientific research achievements can be transformed into productivity as soon as possible, and contribute to high-quality development."