Membrane company memsys and water treatment manufacturer Horizon Environmental Technology have entered into a pilot plant agreement for a coal-to-chemical (CTX) project in northern China.

The Chinese government has promoted the development of the “new coal industry” that uses coal as a feedstock for different chemical production processes.

Coal-to-Chemical (CTX) plants are large consumers of water and often located predominantly in regions that are coal abundant but water scarce. Conventional wastewater treatment technologies cannot deal with such highly polluted wastewater.

As a result of wastewater not being allowed to be discharged into the surrounding environment, zero liquid discharge (ZLD) technology is being considered and applied to this market.

As part of the agreement memsys’ membrane distillation (MD) technology will be used to further concentrate the wastewater or brine solution from upstream unit processes.

The memsys technology is a thermal separation process based on proprietary Vacuum Multi-Effect Membrane Distillation (V-MEMD). The process can be operated using waste heat to produce a high quality distillate and treats a variety of feed water including wastewater or brine with high TDS concentration.

The pilot trial is due to commence in May 2014.

[출처 = Waterworld / 2014년 4월 1일]