US-based forward osmosis specialist, Oasys Water, has unveiled its latest advance in its bid to expand in China with its partner in the region, Beijing Woteer.
Oasys is to supply its membrane brine concentrator (MBC) and reverse osmosis technologies as part of Woteer’s build-own-transfer (BOT) project to construct an integrated zero liquid discharge (ZLD) set up serving a chemicals-from-coal plant. The plant is in the the coal capital of western China, Taiyuan Qing Xu Economic and Technology Development Zone.
Oasys chief executive officer Jim Matheson said he foresees further growth in opportunities from ZLD deployment: “The industrial ZLD market in China continues to expand rapidly and Oasys and Woteer plan additional project announcements in the near future,” he said.
“The BOT model is of increasing interest to customers, but also some of the leading Chinese engineering, procurement and construction companies such as Woteer, and will be increasingly common in the future,” Matheson added in a company statement.
According to Oasys, its MBC system at Taiyuan will be “part of an integrated ZLD wastewater treatment train treating a combination of streams from the boiler makeup water plant with total feed volumes expected at 1,200 m³/day”.
Oasys summarized the process as “pretreatment followed by MF and ion exchange polishing leading to a pre-concentrating reverse osmosis system that feeds the Oasys MBC.”
Oasys said the MBC target recovery was greater than 70%, concentrating the post-RO feed stream from about 75,000 ppm in total dissolved solids to some 240,000 ppm. “This highly concentrated brine from the MBC system will feed a crystallizer to complete the integrated ZLD process,” said Oasys.
The design is, according to Oasys, similar to the one that it and Woteer deployed at the Changxing state-of-the art 1.3 GW coal fired power plant producer, Huaneng Power. The integrated ZLD system at Huaneng is treating flue gas desulphurization effluent and cooling tower blowdown.