Abstract: A few days ago, the first phase of the Tianjin Lingang Seawater Desalination and Comprehensive Utilization Demonstration Base of the Ministry of Natural Resources was completed and put into use.
The seawater desalination project of Dagang Power Plant adopts multi-stage flash seawater desalination technology, with a daily output of about 6,000 tons. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
The first production line of the first phase of the seawater desalination and comprehensive utilization integration project in Tianjin Nangang Industrial Zone.
There are 3 seawater desalination projects in operation in our city, with a scale of 306,000 tons/day. Last year, the city's desalination water output was 31.272 million tons
The seawater desalination water in our city is mainly used for industrial water and municipal water supply, of which industrial water accounts for about 92.5%
Tianjin will actively introduce and cultivate key equipment manufacturing enterprises in the field of seawater desalination, build a 10-billion-level seawater desalination industry chain, and build an advanced manufacturing R&D base for the national seawater desalination industry
Tianjin North Network News: A few days ago, the first phase of the Tianjin Lingang Seawater Desalination and Comprehensive Utilization Demonstration Base of the Ministry of Natural Resources was completed and put into use. It is an industrialization platform that can produce more than 20 types of seawater desalination related products, and a test site equipped with a seawater direct supply and intake pumping station...... This "high-allocation" base has attracted a number of enterprises in the field of seawater desalination to come and settle in.
In recent years, in order to improve the current situation of insufficient fresh water resources, the city has actively explored the vast sea to ask for fresh water to quench the "thirst" of urban development.
The project is working hard and the enterprise is running faster
To put it simply, seawater desalination is to turn seawater with high salt content into fresh water through technical means for urban production and living needs. There are 3 seawater desalination projects in operation in our city, with a scale of 306,000 tons/day. Among them, the seawater desalination project of Beijiang Power Plant adopts low-temperature multi-effect seawater desalination technology, with a production capacity of 200,000 tons/day, the Dagang Xinquan seawater desalination project adopts reverse osmosis seawater desalination technology, with a production capacity of 100,000 tons/day, and the seawater desalination project of Dagang Power Plant adopts multi-stage flash seawater desalination technology, with a daily output of about 6,000 tons. Last year, the city's desalination water output was 31.272 million tons.
The existing projects are moving forward quickly, and the projects under construction are in full swing. The first phase of the seawater desalination and comprehensive utilization integration project of Tianjin Nangang Industrial Zone is advancing as planned, the scale of the project is 150,000 tons/day, with a total of 5 production lines, of which 4 began to supply water at the beginning of this year; at the end of May, the 100,000 tons/day reverse osmosis seawater desalination test site project in the Lingang area of Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone is expected to complete the installation and commissioning, and its seawater desalination water will be used to replace the municipal tap water in Tianjin Lingang Economic Zone. In the future, these two projects will enhance the water supply capacity of Nangang and Lingang areas and serve as the main sources of regional industrial water.
Key projects are working at full speed to refresh the "progress bar", and enterprises are gathering momentum and running out of "acceleration". In recent years, relying on a number of scientific research institutes and universities such as Tianjin Institute of Seawater Desalination and Comprehensive Utilization of the Ministry of Natural Resources (hereinafter referred to as the Institute of Seawater Desalination), Tianjin University, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, as well as national innovation platforms such as the National Seawater Utilization Engineering Technology Research Center, the city has cultivated a number of enterprises engaged in seawater desalination equipment manufacturing, design consulting and comprehensive utilization.
At the beginning of the year, Tianjin Membrane Technology Co., Ltd. provided hundreds of ultrafiltration membranes to the Dagang Xinquan Seawater Desalination Project, gradually replacing the original imported products. Walking into the production workshop, the hollow fiber membranes (also known as membrane filaments) in the shape of hanging noodles go through several production processes to become membrane modules that can process 60 to 120 liters of seawater per hour, and several membrane modules are assembled into membrane units for seawater purification according to the order requirements.
This small membrane filament "hanging noodles" is very important. Under the electron microscope, the surface of the membrane filaments is densely packed with small pores, which are the key to purifying seawater. Depending on the pore size, these membranes are divided into different products, such as microfiltration membranes, ultrafiltration membranes, nanofiltration membranes, and reverse osmosis membranes, which are used in different parts of the seawater purification process. Among them, the smallest pore size of the hollow fiber reverse osmosis membrane with the finest is only one millionth of a human hair. Fan Ning, chairman of Tianjin Membrane Technology Co., Ltd., told reporters that the company's annual production capacity of seawater desalination membrane reaches 5 million square meters, which can meet the demand of 2 million tons/day of seawater desalination.
Asking for water from the sea to "replenish water" for industry
The desalination water in our city is mainly used for industrial water and municipal water supply, of which industrial water accounts for about 92.5%.
Now that the weather is getting warmer, the daily shipment of bottled water produced by Tianjin Haide Runzi Food Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Haide Runzi), located near the Duliu River in Binhai New Area, has increased by more than 10 times compared with previous months. As the first drinking water manufacturer in Tianjin to adopt seawater desalination technology, part of the water source comes from the nearby Dagang power plant. Recently, more than 300 tonnes of desalination water have been "flowing" from the Dagang power plant into the sea every day through the pump, and this figure will rise to more than 400 tonnes in the summer.
Every day, seawater flows into the Dagang Power Plant through the channel, and then is transported to the seawater desalination workshop by the pump, and two sets of multi-stage flash seawater desalination devices change it from "thick" to "desalinated". "Multi-stage flash evaporation is to heat seawater to about 110 degrees Celsius, quickly evaporate to form steam, and then condense to obtain fresh water. Wang Gong, a special engineer in charge of the chemical operation department of Dagang Power Plant, said that last year, the plant produced 1.9 million tons of water through seawater desalination, of which more than 130,000 tons were supplied to Haide Runzi, and the remaining seawater desalination water was used for enterprise production and plant life, replacing more than 520,000 tons of tap water in the plant.
In the Beijiang Power Plant, which is about 80 kilometers away from the Dagang Power Plant, there are 8 sets of seawater desalination plants and 4 sets of supporting seawater pretreatment systems, and the desalination water produced is mainly allocated to users such as Nine Dragons Paper and municipal water plants. As one of the first batch of pilot units for the development of seawater desalination industry in China, the Beijiang Power Plant uses multiple uses of water to "eat and squeeze clean" every drop of seawater.
It is understood that the Beijiang Power Plant relies on the Hangu Salt Farm to carry out the industrial application of concentrated seawater salt production and seawater bromine extraction and magnesium extraction, forming a circular economy industrial chain of "power generation, seawater desalination, concentrated seawater salt production, land conservation and consolidation, waste resource reuse". For example, the person in charge of the Beijiang Power Plant said: "We use the waste heat of power generation to desalinate seawater, and the concentrated seawater produced by seawater desalination is introduced into the salt field to make salt, so that the annual output of the salt field is doubled, so that every drop of seawater can play a greater economic benefit." ”
Build a large platform to accelerate localization
Seawater should be desalined and the industry should be strengthened. Tianjin has a superior geographical location and rich resource endowment, and has the basic conditions and innate advantages for the development of marine economy. In recent years, the city has vigorously developed the seawater desalination industry, strengthened the construction of enterprise scientific and technological innovation and industrialization platform, and tapped new growth points of the marine economy.
It is worth noting that although our city has entered the fast lane of development in the field of seawater desalination, the shortcomings in the development process are still obvious. For example, there is a lack of original basic research and technological innovation, and the key core "stuck neck" technology has not yet been broken through, and there are missing and broken chains in the manufacturing of key core equipment components such as reverse osmosis membrane preparation, high-pressure pumps, and energy recovery devices.
"For a long time, the mainland desalination industry has been facing problems such as dependence on imports of core equipment, slow transformation of achievements and industrialization. In fact, as early as 20 years ago, the localization process of seawater desalination equipment has begun, but this road is not easy to walk. Ruan Guoling, director of the Institute of Seawater Desalination, said that in order to accelerate the process of localization, it is necessary to encourage seawater desalination enterprises to increase R&D efforts and technology introduction, smooth the channels of industry-university-research cooperation, strengthen the deep integration of scientific research institutions, universities and manufacturing enterprises, and promote the transformation and upgrading of technological achievements through the large-scale application of seawater desalination.
In this context, the first phase of the Tianjin Lingang Seawater Desalination and Comprehensive Utilization Demonstration Base of the Ministry of Natural Resources, which has just been put into use, has attracted much attention. The demonstration base covers an area of about 250,000 square meters, with a total investment of 1.96 billion yuan, more than 180 sets of equipment have been put into operation, and three production lines of high-performance separation membrane, water treatment chemicals and equipment manufacturing have been put into operation. "After the completion of the two phases of the demonstration base, it will have the functions of scientific research and development, testing and evaluation, incubation and transformation, survey and design, exchange and training, information integration, etc., to realize the upstream and downstream chain of seawater desalination and comprehensive utilization, and provide a public service platform for the R&D, manufacturing, testing, application and verification of domestic equipment enterprises. Ruan Guoling said.
As a strategic emerging marine industry, seawater desalination is in a period of promising development opportunities. The relevant person in charge of the Municipal Planning and Resources Bureau said that Tianjin will actively introduce and cultivate key equipment manufacturing enterprises in the field of seawater desalination, extend the upstream and downstream industrial chains, build a 10-billion-level seawater desalination industry chain integrating R&D and design, complete machine manufacturing, equipment integration, equipment processing, pharmaceutical production, and engineering general contracting, and build an advanced manufacturing R&D base for the national seawater desalination industry.