China News Service, Taiyuan, September 4 (Ren Lina) In the grand narrative of China’s energy transformation, the word “removing coal” is often regarded as the only answer. But in Shanxi, a land defined by coal for hundreds of years, a group of scientific researchers are giving another answer: not to give up on coal, but to "understand" coal again.
The team of Professor Wang Meijun of Taiyuan University of Technology, relying on the platform of the National Key Laboratory, has used forty years of academic inheritance and more than ten years of industrial cultivation to find the code for the rebirth of traditional industries in the molecular world of coal. Their patented technology won the 26th China Patent Excellence Award, and a series of achievements won the first prize of Shanxi Province Science and Technology Progress Award twice in a row; the industry has achieved cost savings of more than 2 billion yuan; an industrial concept from "selling coal" to "selling services" - it tells not only the story of a scientific research team, but also the deep thinking of how a major energy province repositions itself in the "double-carbon" era.
Shanxi must make good use of every type of coal again
"After finishing his master's degree, he returned to his hometown of Inner Mongolia to engage in coal chemical industry" - this was Wang Meijun's original intention when he came to Taiyuan University of Technology. But after he plunged into the world of coal research, he continued to work hard, from master's degree to doctoral degree, and finally chose to stay at Taiyuan University of Technology to jointly build the National Key Laboratory of Clean and Efficient Utilization of Coal-based Energy with the provincial department to continue to tackle key problems and provide technical support for energy transformation. At that time, coal-to-liquids production in Ningxia was already on the rise, and modern coal chemical industry was booming.
“The coal in Shanxi has ‘coking’ written in its genes.” Wang Meijun said. Coal in Ningxia and Xinjiang is suitable for gasification and liquefaction, but Shanxi's resource endowment, mainly coking coal, determines that if it blindly replicates the modern coal chemical industry model, it is tantamount to asking sprinters to swim long distances - neither economical nor scientific.
This judgment is not a fantasy in the study room. Data show that Shanxi's coke output accounts for one-fifth of the country's total, but high-quality coking coal resources are increasingly scarce, with high-sulfur coal accounting for as much as one-third. At the same time, China's steel industry has had a long-term rigid demand for coke. How to find a balance between resource constraints and industry needs? The answer of Wang Meijun’s team is: not to eliminate coal, but to re-use every type of coal.
Maximize strategic value of scarce resources
In 2014, a major science and technology project in Shanxi Province brought Wang Meijun to the forefront of the industry. At that time, Taigang was under huge cost pressure every year due to fluctuations in coke quality. The team walked into the steel plant with the evaluation data of "medium sulfur coal" and found that this type of coal, which has been neglected for a long time, has an amazing cost-effectiveness after being scientifically proportioned. In just over five months, Taiyuan Steel saved more than 30 million yuan.
Behind this "windfall" is a cognitive revolution launched from the "molecular level." Traditional coal blending relies on experience and industrial indicators, but Wang Meijun's team proposed a "derivative coking mechanism", starting from the molecular structure of coal, to reveal the "chemical reaction script" of different coal types in coke ovens. Based on this, the team developed an intelligent coal blending technology based on the molecular level, scientifically integrating high-sulfur coal and non-coking coal into the coal blending plan, reducing the cost of coal entering the furnace by 40 to 100 yuan/ton. According to estimates, after this technology is promoted throughout the industry, it has saved enterprises a total of more than 2 billion yuan.
The more profound significance lies in resource protection. Wang Meijun calculated an account: through coal blending technology, thermal coal and chemical coal that could not be used for coking can enter the coking process, and Shanxi's high-quality main coking coal is "saved". "This is like using good steel on the edge of a knife to maximize the strategic value of scarce resources."
Three generations of "sitting on the bench" and the emergence of continuous scientific and technological achievements
Recently, Wang Meijun’s team at Taiyuan University of Technology won the China Patent Excellence Award for their technology “a directional sulfur removal method using high-sulfur coking.” At the beginning of 2026, "Development and Application of New Coal Blending Technology for Coal Structure Evolution and Reaction Modulation" won the first prize of the 2024 Shanxi Province Science and Technology Progress Award. After forty years of continuous hard work and the legacy of three generations, from Academician Xie Kechang to Wang Meijun, Taiyuan University of Technology has always focused on basic research in coal science. Wang Meijun said, “We are not chasing hot spots, we are the ‘gatekeepers’ of coal science.”
This kind of "adherence" is not only a persistence in the academic direction, but also a calm judgment on the industrial path. In Wang Meijun's view, the biggest current contradiction in Shanxi's coking industry is not overcapacity itself, but how to find the driving force for transformation in the era of meager profits. "85% to 90% of the costs of coking companies come from coal entering the furnace. Coal blending and cost reduction will help companies survive, and extending the industrial chain will help companies live better."
Industrial breakthrough from “selling coal” to “selling services”
Wang Meijun put forward a bold idea: Shanxi should no longer approve new coking plants on a large scale, but should rely on the world's most concentrated coking coal resources, the most mature coking equipment and the most cutting-edge technical team to shift from "selling coal" to "selling services" - packaging and exporting coal blending technology, coke oven operation and maintenance, and coal quality big data analysis to domestic and foreign countries to achieve "Jin coal going overseas."
This vision is becoming reality. The team has carried out industry-university-research cooperation with companies such as Coking Coal, Taigang, Jinding, and Hunan Iron and Steel. The cooperative enterprise Today Think Tank has deployed more than 20 coal quality testing centers across the country, forming a prototype of a digital coal coke base for the national coking coal industry and promoting the digital transformation of the coal industry. At the same time, the environmental protection red line under the Yellow River Basin Ecological Protection Strategy forces companies to reduce pollution and reduce carbon emissions by reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
"Use technology to give new life to traditional industries"
Regarding the policy level, Wang Meijun suggested that the national and provincial levels should strengthen guidance on the transformation of traditional industries, pay attention to the training of comprehensive talents and the protection of intellectual property rights, and prevent private enterprises from falling into repeated competition at low profits. "As a resource-rich province, Shanxi's mission is to provide China's steel and energy resources, while using technology to give new life to traditional industries."
In the laboratory of Taiyuan University of Technology, Wang Meijun’s students are analyzing new sets of coal blending data. Behind them is forty years of coal science accumulation, a still and deep flow of a traditional industry under the guidance of science, and the most pragmatic answer to energy transformation from generations of coal science "gatekeepers."
China's energy transformation is not an either/or farewell, but a rebirth based on coal conditions.
