Tianjin Dagang Xinquan sea-water desalination plant, one of Tianjin’s key projects and Asia’s largest sea-water desalination project, is progressing smoothly. The main body has finished construction in July 2009, and is now under test operation. The current capacity of the project is essentially capable of feeding desalinated water for the one-million-ton ethylene cracker.
Situated in Marine Petrochemical Park of Dagang District of Tianjin, the project is invested by Hyflux Group from Singapore, with the total investment amounting to 750 million yuan. The project is aimed to guarantee water supply for various industry projects in the park, especially for the one-million-ton ethylene cracker under construction. The daily water desalination capacity of the first phase of the project is 100,000 tons, which is expected eventually to rise to 150,000 tons.
As an early bird to desalt sea water, Tianjin boasts advanced technologies for sea water desalination in China. As early as 1980s, Tianjin constructed the first sea-water desalinating equipment in China. Now, the annual sea water desalinating capacity of Tianjin has reached 5 million tons, with the desalting capacity of projects under construction amounting to 60 million tons. The equipments will directly utilize 1.4 billion tons of sea water.
With 153-kilometer-long coast line, Tianjin, the biggest industrial city in North China features a strong market demand for sea water desalination and comprehensive utilization of sea water. Being short of fresh water supply, the average water resources per capita in Tianjin is only 160 cubic meters. The shortage of water resources has become a bottleneck for social and economic development of the Municipality.
The Municipal Government of Tianjin has treated sea-water desalination as a crucial supplement for city water supply, and Tianjin has become a model city for water desalination in China. By 2010, the daily capacity of water desalting will have reached 500,000 cubic meters, with the annual water desalting capacity exceeding 150 million tons and the annual amount of direct utilization of sea-water being over 4 billion cubic meters. By that time, the daily water desalination capacity of China will hit 800,000 to one million cubic meters, with the annual direct utilization of sea water being 55 billion cubic meters.
The industrialization of seawater desalination is paced up with improved technologies. The Binhai New Area of Tianjin witnessed a successful launch of single-set equipment capable of producing 10,000 tons of fresh water every day from sea water at the end of 2006. This is China’s first patent 10,000-ton per-day sea-water desalination equipment.
A group of model projects of sea-water desalination will have finished construction by 2010. In addition to the Dagang Xinquan sea-water desalination project, the sea-water desalination projects capable of producing 200,000 tons of fresh water per day in Tanggu, at Beijiang Power Plant and Dagang Power Plant, are all under preparation.
According to officials in Tianjin Municipal Science & Technology Commission, the technology of sea-water desalination and utilization in Tianjin takes a leading position in China. “The industrial cluster of sea water desalination is forming, which brings the congregation of many enterprises in geographical sense and improvement of inner system of the industrial chain as well.”
As scheduled, the year 2010 will witness the establishment of a R&D center of key technologies of China’s sea-water desalination in Tianjin, which will then make Tianjin a model city of sea-water desalination and a processing hub for set equipments with independent intellectual property rights.
Statistics show that there are currently more than 130 countries in the world practicing sea-water desalination technology, producing fresh water of about 40 million tons per day, 80 percent of which is used as drinking water for over 100 million people around the globe. It is estimated that by 2015, the global sea-water desalination industry will bring an income of US$95 billion, and China’s capacity for sea water desalination will reach 2.5 million to 3 million tons per day by the year of 2020.
