Near the end of the year, there was a wave of "mini climax" in the field of water environment governance: the central finance plans to issue trillions of treasury bond in the fourth quarter for eight major purposes, among which the improvement of urban drainage and waterlogging prevention capacity is one; A new round of "housing reform" is brewing, and the demand for urban village renovation and urban renewal is accelerating; The revision of the Marine Environmental Protection Law has been completed, and the overall pattern of land to sea and land to sea has basically taken shape. The market potential of related monitoring and pollution disposal equipment urgently needs to be explored; The Ministry of Water Resources has issued guidance to achieve high-quality development of rural water supply from "having water to drink" to "drinking good water"
The benefits of water supply and pollution control are multiple, and opportunities for pipeline networks and water purification are frequent. For practitioners, this year's "closing battle" is destined to be not dull.
At the same time, the highly anticipated 2023 Beijing Water Expo will also return from November 20th to 22nd. Together with China Membrane Industry Association, Shandong High end Chemical Industry Development Promotion Association, Shandong Household Appliance Industry Association Water Purification Special Committee, Zhejiang Membrane Industry Association, China Clean Water Union and other industry media associations, more than ten special forum activities have been prepared during the same period, showcasing the latest and most reliable technologies in the fields of water purification, membrane and water treatment, and environmental protection water treatment In addition to cutting-edge technologies and products, analyze the current situation and development trends of the industry, and look forward to a high-quality future at the Beijing National Convention Center.
Relay Guangdong Water Exhibition and Shanghai International Water Exhibition, the spring breeze of recovery and progress blowing at the beginning of the year continues to release warmth. Looking back at the rapid development process over the years, we have found that the scale of the water treatment industry is gradually expanding, which is not only a strong demand to win the battle for protecting clean water, but also inseparable from the upgrading of governance technology and innovation of service models. Nowadays, "vigorously developing the green economy" has been included in the 14th Five Year Plan, and the path of "building a market-oriented green technology innovation system and implementing green technology innovation action" is becoming increasingly clear.
Agricultural wastewater: decentralized, recyclable, and simplified
At the national level, it is emphasized to accelerate progress, and the local level governance schedule and roadmap have been gradually clarified and implemented. The treatment of domestic sewage and black and odorous water bodies has become a new track in the rural environmental protection market. In the Action Plan for the Struggle of Pollution Control in Agriculture and Rural Areas (2021-2025), it is required to include over 4000 rural black and odorous water bodies with strong public feedback and a large area in the national regulatory list, and to implement the policy of "listing and canceling accounts one by one".
From the perspective of the industry, the process of preventing and controlling water pollution in rural areas has been lagging behind industrial and urban areas for many years, and there is huge room for social capital to play. As of the end of 2020, the national rural sewage treatment rate was only 25.5%, far from the 40% required by the above documents. At the technical level, it is clearly not feasible to copy the urban sewage treatment model in rural areas, and decentralized treatment methods such as small-scale integration and on-site reuse will have more development value.
Therefore, with the principle of adapting to local conditions as the primary principle, the composite model of centralized station construction in townships and decentralized treatment in single households is widely welcomed. In response to the high organic content of rural sewage, processes such as anaerobic filter (AF), sequencing batch activated sludge reactor (SBR), and biofilm reactor (MBR) have shown strong adaptability. AO-MBR, one of the commonly used rural sewage treatment methods in China, can achieve efficient integration of septic tanks, septic tanks, sewage tanks, anoxic tanks, aerobic tanks, MBR tanks, clean water tanks, and effluent. It not only improves solid-liquid separation efficiency but also ensures the stability of reactor biodegradation. The effluent quality is good and can be reused for reclaimed water, meeting the needs of irrigation and water replenishment in rural areas.
The top-level design document "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Deepening the Battle of Pollution Prevention and Control" also points out that the implementation of the action to fill the gaps in environmental infrastructure will prioritize the promotion of rural domestic sewage treatment technologies with low operating costs and simple management and protection, and strengthen the long-term operation and maintenance of rural domestic sewage treatment facilities.
Industrial wastewater: high value by-products, energy conservation, and resource utilization
Key industries such as metallurgy, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, printing and dyeing, and papermaking are not only major water users, but also major sources of sewage discharge. Data shows that in 2021, China's industrial water consumption accounted for about 17.7% of the total water consumption, and wastewater discharge accounted for about 1/4 of the national sewage discharge. On one hand, there is the soaring demand for industrial water, and on the other hand, there is the difficult to treat high salt, high concentration, and high pollution wastewater. How to open up the circulation of industrial wastewater and "turn waste into treasure" has become the key to alleviating the contradiction between water supply and demand in the industrial field, and it is also one of the emerging technological fields that environmental experts closely pay attention to.
In the traditional treatment mode, the centralized collection and unified treatment mode amplifies the complex characteristics of high salt wastewater components, making treatment difficult and costly. Therefore, in response to increasingly strict environmental requirements, industrial wastewater treatment technology is also constantly improving. Concentration, crystallization, and coupling synergy technologies have begun to enter people's vision, and are more commonly used to achieve zero discharge of high salt wastewater recovery. On this basis, according to the situation of high salt wastewater from different sources, pre-treatment processes such as chemical precipitation, multi medium filtration, and adsorption can be added to achieve the best purification effect, achieve "zero discharge" and resource utilization.
In order to obtain higher value treatment products, the final process - crystallization has become the focus of all parties' efforts. The widely used fractional crystallization technology in recent years has the idea of fully reusing water. This process not only improves the reuse rate of water, but also ultimately leads to industrial grade salt products with resource utilization. The process needs to be coupled, including nanofiltration, cooling crystallization, evaporation crystallization, etc., while also effectively connecting with the membrane treatment process of the concentration process. The practice of a high salt wastewater treatment project in a coal chemical industry has found that the salt separation product of this process has a mass fraction of over 96% for sodium sulfate, over 98% for sodium chloride, and only less than 5% of the total salt content is mixed salt.
Due to its promising development prospects, the zero discharge technology of high salt wastewater based on the fractional crystallization process is also considered an inevitable trend in the industry for the resource utilization of high salt wastewater in the future.
Domestic sewage: improving quality, efficiency, intelligence, and low-carbon
Currently, domestic sewage treatment facilities are undergoing a significant transformation from "scale growth" to "quality and efficiency improvement". With the accelerated integration of modern technological means such as information technology, the Internet of Things, and big data with the environmental protection industry, the concept of smart water has emerged. By introducing advanced automation equipment and intelligent control systems, various stages of sewage treatment can be efficiently connected, optimized and adjusted based on real-time data feedback, improving treatment efficiency and operational level. After networking with environmental protection and water conservancy departments, we can share water resources and environmental information, collaborate on governance, and provide strong support for improving quality, efficiency, and high-quality development of the water industry.
Practitioners believe that in the era of digital and data economy, smart water will be an important development direction of common concern for the industry.
The improvement of the intelligent level of water network engineering has been included in the "National Water Network Construction Plan Outline" issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council, and three key points for "accelerating intelligent development" have been clarified, namely strengthening the digital construction of water networks, improving the intelligent level of water network dispatch and management, and improving the water network monitoring system. According to this plan, China has more than 660 cities, and the large-scale promotion of the construction of smart water systems requires the establishment of an auxiliary decision-making platform system that integrates multiple functions such as "forecasting, early warning, rehearsal, and contingency plans", which is expected to stimulate a market of tens of billions.
In the context of the "dual carbon" strategy, the Association for Pollution Reduction and Carbon Reduction is also an important issue for the development of the water treatment industry. A study by China University of Science and Technology has found that sewage treatment plants are not only major consumers of electricity and chemicals, but also generate and directly emit greenhouse gases such as CH4 and N2O during the degradation and transformation of pollutants, making them an undeniable source of carbon emissions. Therefore, after numerous technological breakthroughs, the sewage treatment industry has gradually formed four carbon reduction paths: resource recycling, adoption of low-carbon processes, improvement of equipment operation efficiency, and implementation of low-carbon operation management. "Photovoltaic+sewage treatment plant" is one of the representative application models.
epilogue
The focus is on rural areas, resource utilization is the core element, and smart water is the future. Policies have been strengthened layer by layer, and the requirements for energy conservation and emission reduction during the 14th Five Year Plan have become increasingly clear. The "dual carbon" goal has heated up various new demands. The traditional water treatment industry has reached a crossroads of transformation, and where is the next step in technological innovation? How should enterprises choose as innovative entities? You urgently need a more professional and profound brainstorming session to find the new direction in the tide of the times!
