A 10,000-metric-ton carbon dioxide to aromatics industrial test project officially started construction in Juungar Banner in the city of Ordos in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region on June 5.

The project is a major cooperation item between Tsinghua University and Jiutai Group.

It uses carbon dioxide and hydrogen as raw materials and is the world's first 10,000-ton-level carbon dioxide utilization project to make use of hydrocarbons.

The main product of the project, mesitylene, is an important fine chemical raw material.

After oxidation and polymerization, it can be made into polyimide, an engineering plastic with high temperature resistance and excellent insulation properties that is widely used in high-tech fields such as microelectronics.

Especially in recent years, its application in photoresists, chip packaging, flexible displays, flexible printed circuits (FPCs) and thermally conductive graphite film has grown rapidly, and it has been named "the most promising engineering plastic of the 21st century".

When the project is put into operation, it will significantly change China’s share of imported aromatics, provide a strong basis for the establishment of a million-ton coal-based syngas production aromatics plant, and help achieve the use of coal to prepare high-end chemicals (aromatics).