Membrane technology is an emerging interdisciplinary technology. New technologies and new processing techniques on membrane production are constantly being discovered and invented, membrane application is being expanded to more and more fields. At present, profit of membrane separation industry is about 100-200%, which has stimulated investment and research in this industry. However, high cost of complete-set equipment and high-level technical difficulty has lifted the market entry threshold.
At present, about 90% membrane separation engineering companies are involved in manufacturing equipment for the production of industrial pure water, high pure water and civilian pure water and the competition in the industry is quite fierce. About 30 membrane separation engineering companies are engaged in the separation and purification of industrial liquid and the treatment of industrial waste water.
According to the statistics, only a few companies use membrane technology to manufacture equipment for the treatment of electroplating wastewater, the recovery of precious metals and reuse of water, which are newly developed fields in the application of membrane technology. And market capacity of the equipment is large and competition in the market is not fierce.
Technology of designing and producing industrial and civilian pure water equipment is more mature and easier to be mastered relatively. However, it is difficulty to produce the equipment for separation, purification and condensation of industrial liquid and treatment of industrial wastewater, due to the high market entry threshold built up by the diversity of products, market uncertainty and high-level technical difficulty.
Application of membrane technology in water treatment market covers the following three aspects:
1. Seawater desalination:
According to "the Special Plan for Seawater Utilization" issued jointly by the National Development and Reform Commission or NDRC, the State Oceanic Administration and the Ministry of Finance, China's total investment in seawater desalination through 2010 is expected to reach CNY13.6 billion to CNY18 billion, of which 30% to 40% will go to the production of membrane and membrane module so as to make China's total volume of seawater desalination reach 800,000~1,000,000 tons per day in 2010 from current 40,000 tons per day.
2. Recycling wastewater:
NDRC, China's top economic planning agency, has clearly set standards for limiting emissions and water consumption in such industries with high water consumption and high emissions as power, petrochemical, dying and printing, steel and papermaking and also lifted the price of industrial water. Therefore, recycling industrial wastewater will play a very important role in enlarging the membrane market during the "11th Five-Year Plan" period (2006-2010).
3 Purifying water:
With the rapid development of urbanization and industrialization in China, water in water plants in the Chinese cities has been polluted to a certain extent, as most of them use traditional water treatment technology, which could do nothing about heavy metals and organic pollutants in water.
However, membrane separation technology, which is used almost in all production of bottled drinking water and instant drinking machines, is able to remove noxious and hazardous substances. Additionally, membrane technology is also widely used in food and wine industry to condense and separate fruit juice and in the fields of medical injection and electronic components.
The prospect of China's membrane market will be optimistic during the11th Five-Year Plan period (2006-2010). China's market demand for membranes was CNY12 billion in 2007 and is expected to exceed CNY20 billion in 2010, amounting to 10-15% of the world total by then, which represents an annual rise of around 15% averagely in the five years.
Many Chinese companies are able not only to produce membrane and membrane modules but also contract water treatment engineering projects, indicating China's membrane and water treatment technology are becoming increasingly mature. Blue Star (Beijing) Cleaning Co. is one of the general contractors with remarkable achievements in such fields as pharmacy, beer & food, metallurgy and municipal engineering, and a leader in membrane and water treatment industry in China.