Sinopec taps Siemens for wastewater system
27 May 2011
Anqing, China – Siemens Water Technologies will provide a system to treat wastewater at Sinopec Corp.’s Anqing refinery, in Anhui Province, China.
The Sinopec refinery discharges its treated wastewater into the Yangtze - the third largest river in the world and the largest in China. Preserving and maintaining this major waterway’s water quality and ecosystems is one of the Chinese government’s main environmental initiatives.
The complete wastewater treatment solution will include Siemens’ powdered activated carbon treatment (PACT) system, a Zimpro wet air regeneration (WAR) hydrothermal unit, and a Hydro-Clear sand filtration system.
The three-tier system will be used to treat salty and oily wastewater from refining and petrochemical production activities from existing and upgraded units. The wastewater needs to meet the Chinese specifications for surface discharge. The system will become operational in 2012.
The 1,000 m3/h Anqing system will help Sinopec discharge a cleaner effluent and also generate approximately 500 m3/h of reusable water. The refinery will reuse the water in its cooling tower system, which will help to further offset the strain on China’s surface water bodies.
To treat the refinery’s wastewater, Siemens will install a PACT system, which combines biological treatment and carbon adsorption into a single, synergistic treatment step to remove organics. The solids are pumped as slurry to the Zimpro WAR unit where the carbon is regenerated and biological solids are destroyed.
As it will generate virtually no sludge that requires landfill disposal or incineration, the WAR system will help to lower operating costs for the Anqing refinery’s wastewater treatment, said Siemens.
The Hydro-Clear filter system makes it possible to filter large volumes of water and return it to the cooling circuit, resulting in large savings in the amount of fresh water required and thus further reducing costs, the vendor also claimed.
