Summary: In May, Shandong Ensign put forward proposal to expand the built 600,000 t/a capacity for citric acid and announced the completion of the 400,000 t/a refined citric acid project.

On 17 May, Shandong Ensign Industry Co., Ltd. (Shandong Ensign) publicised the environmental impact assessment of the 700,000 t/a citric acid green and intelligence upgrade project for public review for the second time. This project is to expand its built 600,000 t/a capacity for citric acid up to 700,000 t/a, also to increase the production automation level and renew some old facilities. On the project completion, the company's production will see a great improvement in digitalisation and reduction of pollutions and overall consumption.

Details of the 700,000 t/a citric acid expansion project

• Construction nature: Expansion and retrofitting
• Location: The built plant area in Changle County, Weifang City, Shandong Province
• Total investment: USD41.29 million (RMB298 million), USD1.66 million (RMB12 million) of which for environmental protection
• Main construction content:
• Add one automatic control fermentation workshop, one strain cultivation workshop, one fully automatic ion-exchange workshop, one high-performance drying workshop, one automatic liquefaction workshop
• Change the existing semi-automatic packaging system to a fully automatic one in the refining workshop; replace the old centrifugation machine with a fully automatic one; upgrade the warehouse for finished citric acid products to an intelligent storage facility, the methane-powered water heater to a heat-transfer system from fermentation broth, and the liquefaction system; reconstruct the installed corn silos, inbound and outbound stations, and other equipment and facilities.
• Add new purchases of fermentation tank, seed tank, ion-exchange system, automatic packaging system, etc.
• Processing capacity: 2 million t/a corn, with 150,000-tonnes capability of corn storage
• Designed production capacity:
• Main product: 700,000 t/a citric acid, to be improved from the current 600,000 t/a (counted in anhydrous citric acid volume)
• By-product: 350,000 t/a feeds, 6,000 t/a crude corn oil, 805,000 t/a calcium sulfate dihydrate powder, 35,000 t/a anaerobic granular sludge
• Working system: 1,720 in-service staff working in three 8-hour shifts for 330 days a year or 7,920 hours a year
• Construction period: 48 months, from June 2023 to May 2027, with commissioning tests to be implemented during the period

Previously from 16 March to 13 April, Shandong Ensign's 400,000 t/a refined citric acid project was disclosed after being environmentally accepted on the completed construction.

Details of the 400,000 t/a refined citric acid project

• Construction nature: Expansion
• Location: In a new area on the west side of the old plant
• Actual investment: USD309.60 million (RMB2.23 million), USD14.00 million (RMB101.04 million) of which for environmental protection
• Construction capacity:
• 400,000 t/a Citric acid — 62,500 t/a for the manufacturing of citrate in this project and 337,500 t/a for sale; in addition, 115,900 t/a citric acid produced from the operating 600,000 t/a project abovementioned is distributed to the manufacturing of citrates here
• 220,000 t/a Sodium citrate
• 20,000 t/a Potassium citrate
• 10,000 t/a Calcium citrate
• 200,000 t/a Feed materials from citric acid fermentation
• Approval release of the environmental impact assessment: 28 Sept., 2020
• End of construction: 30 June, 2022