The completion ceremony will be held on August 31, adding 10,000 tons of production capacity per year.
Expansion of e-fuel market such as 3rd plant and overseas plant in the future.

Guests are cutting tapes at the completion ceremony for Biofriends DME’s second factory.

Major guests are listening to the current status of the second plant from CEO Wonjun Cho.

CEO Wonjun Cho is making a progress report on the completion of the second plant.

Biofriends Inc. (CEO Wonjun Cho), a hydrogen specialist company, held a completion ceremony for Boeun DME Plant 2 on the 31st.

The recently completed Boeun DME 2nd Plant began design in May 2021 and began full-scale construction in March 2022. The second factory invested approximately 15 billion won on a 11,000㎡ site and was equipped with facilities such as a methanol storage tank, DME reaction plant, and DME storage tank.

The second plant will lead Korea's DME market with an annual production capacity of 10,000 tons, which is twice the annual production capacity of the first DME plant, which has been in operation since August 2020, which is 5,000 tons.

With the completion of the second DME plant, the stability of the domestic DME market is expected to be secured and business expansion into various fuels, such as entering the LPG+DME mixed fuel market and supplying carbon-neutral eco-friendly fuel to rural areas, is expected to accelerate.

The DME production business is a net zero project that captures carbon dioxide generated in the cement, steel, and petrochemical industries, produces clean hydrogen and synthetic gas, converts it into methanol, a CCU product, and produces DME, a high value-added compound, from which it is currently operated by Biofriends. Now, they are carrying out a national CCU (Carbon capture utilization) project.

Biofriends is entering the domestic aerosol market, which is approximately 40,000 tons as of 2022, of which DME is approximately 13,000 tons, showing an average annual growth rate of 3.7%. The plan is to further secure the stability of the domestic aerosol market through the operation of the existing first factory and the second factory going into production.

Biofriends CEO Wonjun Cho said in a progress report, “We are expanding various businesses to enter the Asian DME export market such as Japan, Indonesia, and India. We will not end with the second plant, but will expand to a third plant capable of producing 30,000 tons per year in the future. We plan to expand into the DME and e-fuel markets through the construction of overseas factories,” he said.

The completion ceremony was held in the order of introducing the bio-franz business and reporting progress, congratulations, tape cutting, and factory tours, attended by Cho Won-joon, Boeun County Governor Choi Jae-hyung, National Assemblyman Park Deok-heum, Park Kyung-sook, Chungcheongbuk-do Council's Industrial Economy Committee.

In Chungcheongbuk-do, a 'low-carbon fuel technology development project using CO₂ emissions from the cement industry' is being promoted with a total of 39 billion won of government, local, and private investments at the Sungshin Cement Factory in Danyang-gun, where cement factories are concentrated, which are industrial sites that emit large amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. Biofriends is playing its key role.

In the future, carbon dioxide emitted from the kiln furnace of Sungshin Cement's cement manufacturing process will be captured, converted into methanol, and transported to DME's second plant to be reborn as DME, a high value-added, carbon-neutral clean fuel.

eFuel(a clean synthetic fuel made by reacting carbon dioxide captured with ‘clean hydrogen’ produced using renewable energy such as solar power or wind power) such as eMethanol and eDME, which will be produced in the second plant in the future, is expected to lead a new paradigm in the energy field.

Kim Myeong-gyu, Deputy Governor of Chungcheongbuk-do Province, said, “The completion of Biofriends’ second factory is a great success achieved through the company’s steady investment in technology development, the efforts of executives and researchers, and administrative support, and is an excellent example that serves as a model for the region.” “We will continue to do our best to support local carbon-neutral leading companies so that they can actively respond to changes in the global market and demonstrate technological competitiveness,” he said.

On the other hand, DME (Di-Methyl Ether) is an eco-friendly compound used in aerosols such as refrigerants, foaming agents, sprays, and propellants, and is a new energy raw material that replaces diesel, a diesel vehicle fuel, and produces hydrogen with eco-friendly fuels that reduce fine dust. In addition, it is a more attractive product because it has similar properties to LPG, so it is easy to mix and can be used without changing facilities when mixing within 20%.

Source: Gas Newspaper http://www.gasnews.com