Calcium carbide is an important platform chemical for production of pure chemicals and polymers from coal. Production of calcium carbide adopted in the past century relies on electric-arc heating

which is energy intensive particularly when power is generated from combustion of coal. To avoid energy loss in power generation

auto-thermal calcium carbide production processes have been developed and tested at scale up to pilot plant or industrial demonstration. This paper introduces features of these processes and shows recent developments in China in terms of fundamental aspects of the process

including reactors

reaction mechanism and kinetics

effects of feeds properties

mass transfer and phase change on the reaction

as well as system integration and analysis.