in the phase-i construction of zhejiang petrochemical’s 40 million t/y refining chemical integration project, the 100,000 t/d membrane seawater desalination system undertaken by hangzhou water treatment has been accepted, marking that the largest membrane seawater desalination project in china’s petrochemical industry has been successfully put into operation. the desalination system, one of the key projects of the petrochemical engineering, is designed for providing a strong guarantee of freshwater resources for all its processes as well as an emergency response water source for over 50,000 people on the island.
shouldering great responsibility for water supplies for a world-class petrochemical industrial base
zhejiang petrochemical’s 40 million t/y refining chemical integration project is located in the zhoushan green petrochemical base, with a total investment of 173 billion yuan. constructed in two phases, it has been china’s leading petrochemical engineering program in recent years, the single industrial project with the largest investment in the world. in september 2018, premier li keqiang inspected the project site, listened to the progress report and cordially greeted on-site staff members.
during the construction phase, the water demand for daily use and the project’s operation was enormous. but the freshwater resources on yushan island were scarce, making it difficult to meet the needs of inhabitants for water supplies. arguably, the demand for freshwater resources was extremely urgent. faced with the challenge, hangzhou water treatment utilized local materials from the vast ocean, introduced the international leading desalination technology, provided a full range of solutions, and dispatched experienced professional engineering team to the site, ensuring the schedule and water quality and effectively alleviating water problems.
making every effort to ensure the project progress
the engineering work is the desalination system for china’s largest refining-chemical integrated program, constituting a daunting challenge for hangzhou water treatment. it is the first and foremost challenge for the engineering project to be implemented in a limited space. to maximize the use of space, hangzhou water treatment has also exchanged space for area to the maximum in addition to choosing china’s largest single seawater reverse osmosis plant and applying the ultra-large horizontal filter domestically for the first time. all reverse osmosis units are installed on a secondary overhead platform, with units placed on the upper level and pipelines on the lower level.
after the start of construction, hangzhou water treatment carried out equipment installation, supervision of pipeline laying, equipment commissioning, and water production, while solving a range of problems such as the tight schedule, continuous outdoor operations in rainy days, complex deep-pit cross-operations, huge workload of underground socket pipes, and repeated technical upgrading of on-site pumps. in particular, the largest single domestic seawater reverse osmosis plant is assembled by 18 small units. on the 4m secondary platform, the personnel from hangzhou water treatment must fix the problem over how to accurately docking and assembly. in the 0.25 square kilometers of seawater desalination area, hangzhou water treatment’s personnel manually ran the system round the clock, solved technical bottlenecks for quality and safety, promoted the progress of the project, and finally completed a successful performance evaluation of the membrane seawater desalination system for zhejiang petrochemical, ensuring the safe and steady operation across the system.
overcoming difficulties for customer needs
in this huge project, hundreds of construction units started simultaneously, with multi-skilled workers’ cross-operations making the on-site management more difficult. efficiency makes for and safety underpins the project in the construction, hangzhou water treatment mobilized resources from all parties, strictly implemented the owner’s node assessment, and completed the intermediate handover and the performance assessment of key indicators as early as possible. to reach the water production target proposed by the owner despite the incomplete construction of pipelines, hangzhou water treatment immediately made a plan with “progress assessment” as its goal and finally accomplished the progress target on schedule after four months of round-the-clock efforts. in the project implementation, hangzhou water treatment has always upheld a rigorous, prudent and safety-oriented philosophy to open up the entire process, twice winning the workplace safety award granted by the owner.
innovation-driven development ensures leading technologies
through 50-plus years of technological progress, experience accumulation and management enhancement, hangzhou water treatment boasts completely intellectual property rights of key technologies through independent r&d. it has developed seawater desalination equipment and engineering technology with a daily output of 100-ton, 1,000-ton, 10,000-ton and even 100,000-ton desalted water, making china one of the few countries across the world mastering large-scale seawater desalination technology, with the results reaching the international advanced level. in 2019, hangzhou water treatment participated in the completion of the “key technology and application of homogeneous ionic membrane preparation” that won the second prize of the national technology invention award, delivering strong technical support to the company’s industrial development.
currently, hangzhou water treatment’s seawater desalination technology has been successfully applied to municipal construction, nuclear power, industry and other sectors, with desalination projects built in 10-odd countries and regions. the successful construction of the seawater desalination system of the phase-i project of zhejiang petrochemical marks the first time that hangzhou water treatment has broken through the threshold of 100,000 tons of desalinated water in the petrochemical industry, thus obtaining the performance access to the industry. this also represents a solid support for the green industry, providing a strong underpinning for building an international petrochemical base and bolstering the transformation and upgrading of china’s petrochemical industry.