The world’s first plant that converts coal into ethanol has started production in China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences has announced.

The facility in Liaoning province began production in January 2017 with a capacity of 100,000 t/y anhydrous ethanol and has been operating steadily since then, the academy said. The plant was developed by Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum and the academy’s Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics. The institute’s deputy director, Liu Zhongmin, said that by 2020 China will build a plant capable of producing 1 million t/y of ethanol using the coal-based technology.

According to Liu, the country currently produces 7 million t/y of ethanol from other methods that “hardly satisfies” its industrial and energy needs. He commented: “Most countries produce ethanol using food, such as corn or sugar cane, but this is not a viable option for China given its massive population. By turning China’s abundant coal resources into ethanol, the technology will help safeguard our energy and food security.” Liu added that using ethanol would also reduce the country’s dependency on fossil fuels and make its industrial and energy production more environmentally friendly.

The US mostly uses corn to make ethanol, with plants concentrated in the so-called corn belt of the Midwest region. Brazil, the world’s largest producer of ethanol from sugarcane, has replaced almost 42% of its gasoline needs with the alcohol, according to the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association and the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency.

No details were given on the Chinese coal conversion technology. A report in AsianScientist magazine said the new method uses cheap catalysts to combine dimethyl ether and methyl acetate into anhydrous ethanol.