Facility first to get ethanol from coal

China has opened the world's first production line that converts coal into ethanol, the main chemical ingredient in alcohol, the Chinese Academy of Sciences has announced.

The facility in Xingping, Shaanxi province, which went into service in January, was developed by the academy's Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics and the State-owned Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum Group.

The project could yield more than 100,000 metric tons of pure ethanol a year, according to Liu Zhongmin, deputy director of the institute.