Turning coal into pure ethanol

Beijing: China has successfully created the world’s first production line to turn coal into ethanol, or drinking alcohol, the Chinese Academy of Sciences said.

Created by Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum and the academy’s Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics in Liaoning province, the production line went into operation in January and has the capacity to make more than 100,000 metric tonnes of pure ethanol every year, according to Liu Zhongmin, the institute’s deputy director.