Toray Industries Inc. announced that it received orders to supply reverse osmosis (RO) membranes to seawater desalination plants in Qingdao (Shandong) and Caofeidian (Tangshan, Hebei) in China. Scheduled to be operational within the year, the two plants together will produce a total of 150,000 cu meters of water per day.
The Qingdao Desalination Plant, with a capacity of 26.4 million gal per day (mgd) is scheduled to start operations in 2011. The largest RO membrane desalination plant in China, it is currently under construction by Befesa of Spain in conjunction with Qingdao City in Jiaozhou Bay. The water produced at this plant will be used to provide drinking water to the 7.5 million residents of Qingdao City, who are suffering from water shortage. This is expected to be the first time desalinated water will be fully used as drinking water in China.
The Caofeidian Desalination Plant, with a capacity of 13.2 mgd, also is scheduled to start operations in 2011. Caofeidian, located in the suburbs of Tangshan City, is the largest industrial development zone in China. The plant is co-funded by Tangshan Caofeidian Infrastructure Investment Co. Ltd. and Aqualyng China Co. Ltd., a regional office of Aqualyng, and is being constructed by the Development Center of Water Treatment Technology of Hangzhou. The quality of water produced at the plant will satisfy national drinking water standards and will mainly be used as industrial water at the Caofeidian industrial development zone.
Toray is offering its high-performance RO membranes, based on its proprietary technologies, widely in the Chinese market. Its products already have been adopted by several water treatment plants, including the wastewater reclamation plant at Ningxia Coal Chemical and the sewage and wastewater reclamation plant at Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area. In July 2009, Toray established Toray Blue Star Membrane Co. Ltd. (TBMC) jointly with China National BlueStar Co. Ltd. in response to the rapidly growing water demand in China. TBMC is the first company to produce RO membranes and elements by a foreign company in China, and started full-scale operation earlier this year. Toray aims to accelerate the expansion of its Chinese water treatment membrane business by establishing a supply structure with TBMC’s operation and combining Toray’s sophisticated water treatment technologies with BlueStar Group’s unbeatable sales network.
Source: Toray Industries Inc.
