BEIJING, China – US forward osmosis (FO) firm Oasys Water has followed up its success in the Chinese industrial water market with a further three projects.
Oasys and its Chinese partner, Beijing Woteer Water Technology Co., Ltd. (Woteer), were selected to provide a Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) water treatment plant for process effluent streams at the $3.1 billion coal-based methanol petrochemical plant under construction near Ordos, located in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
Woteer will provide a ZLD water treatment system, featuring Oasys' FO, to transform 3,200 m3/day of process wastewater at the CTO complex, the largest of Oasys’ three new projects.
At five times the capacity of Oasys’ initial commercial project in China at the Changxing Power Plant, this new deployment will use two of Oasys’ Membrane Brine Concentrator (MBC) systems in parallel, to transform high salinity process wastewater into fresh water to be recycled in the plant’s production process.
The water treatment system will include the MBC systems and polishing reverse osmosis (RO) from Oasys along with pre-treatment and crystallizer systems provided by Woteer.
Oasys and Woteer are also in the final stages of commissioning a ZLD project for treatment of combined power plant wastewater streams of 1,200 m3/day at the Yangmei Taihua CTO complex in Shanxi province, where Woteer will be the owner and operator of the plant.
Both the Yangmei Taihua and Zhongtian projects feature process flows similar to Changxing Power Plant, with pre-treated wastewater concentrated to 220,000 mg/L TDS or higher in the MBC prior to brine crystallization.
Finally, Woteer was recently awarded a third project featuring Oasys FO-based MBC technology, for treatment of flue gas desulfurization (FGD) wastewater to ZLD at Shanxi Lujin Electric Power’s Wangqu Thermal Power Station, a coal-fired power plant in China’s Shanxi province.
This plant will utilize an MBC system for brine concentration of a 370 m3/day stream to 240,000 mg/L for combination of the effluent brine with a flyashbyproduct. The system design for Wangqu follows the award-winning process design from Changxing, further setting the standard for China and global power market ZLD solutions.
Although FO technology has failed to be adopted on a large scale for municipal water treatment, inroads are being made on industrial applications, with a partnership signed earlier this month between Aquaporin and Berghof Membrane Technology (read WWi article).
In 2015, Oasys Water and Woteer successfully commissioned and deployed the world’s first commercial application of FO-based ZLD through a project at the Changxing Power Plant to desalinate the coal-fired power plant’s FGD wastewater.
The Changxing plant is now treating up to 650 m3/day of FGD wastewater, transforming it into freshwater to be reused in plant operations.
Jim Matheson, president and CEO of Oasys Water, said: “China has clearly established itself as the world’s leader in adopting innovative technology to tackle challenging industrial wastewaters, and this growth has allowed Oasys to rapidly scale the development and deployment of our technology.”
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