[Mainland China] Xinjiang Ganquanbao's RMB 739 million industrial wastewater resource recovery project enters commissioning: 42 process stages achieve a 98% recovery rate, and concentrated brine crystallization produces industrial salt.

The Urumqi Ganquanbao Economic and Technological Development Zone wastewater resource utilization project has a total investment of 7.39亿 yuan and is currently in the commissioning and trial operation stage. Once fully operational, it will treat 5万 cubic meters of high-salinity industrial tailwater per day. The wastewater must go through 42 progressive treatment stages, with the finest membrane pore size at only 0.1 nanometers, and a water resource recovery rate of up to 98%; the remaining concentrated brine is evaporated and crystallized to produce standardized industrial salt.

I. The Water Challenge in a Zero-Carbon Industrial Park

The Ganquanbao Economic and Technological Development Zone is among the national first batch of zero-carbon park pilots, hosting a large concentration of new energy and new materials enterprises. Such parks share a common characteristic: high industrial water demand, complex wastewater composition, and high salinity. The traditional treatment logic is "discharge upon meeting standards," but when water resource constraints and zero-carbon requirements coexist, this pathway becomes increasingly uneconomical—water is purchased once, used once, and discharged, with additional treatment costs for discharge, while the park itself struggles with water scarcity.

The project is constructed by Xinjiang Derun Zhongjian Water Resources Development Co., Ltd., with China Construction Third Engineering Bureau Green Industry Investment Co., Ltd. responsible for operation and maintenance. In early 10月, a batch of freshly packaged industrial salt at the project site was ready for shipment to a large chemical enterprise within Xinjiang as a production raw material—this is the "second life" of industrial wastewater after membrane filtration and crystallization.

II. 42 Treatment Stages: The "Two Lives" of a Drop of High-Salinity Wastewater

The purification journey of industrial wastewater begins in the pretreatment workshop. Wastewater from various enterprises in the park converges here, where workers precisely prepare chemicals and dose purification materials, causing suspended impurities and pollutants in the water to rapidly agglomerate and settle. In the flocculation sedimentation tank, a pool of brownish-red water appears turbid and dense, but it is actually the concentrated brine separated by the dual-membrane system undergoing fine purification reactions.

After initial purification, the wastewater is precisely diverted: the clean water initially meets standards, while the concentrated brine enters the advanced treatment stage. Diversion is a critical step—it allows subsequent treatment to avoid applying the highest-intensity processes to all water volumes, thereby significantly reducing energy consumption and investment.

The core process is integrated membrane treatment. The water passes sequentially through multiple membrane processes including Ultrafiltration and Reverse Osmosis, with filtration pore sizes progressively narrowing, the finest being only 0.1 nanometers. This scale approaches the boundary between water molecule clusters and dissolved salt ions, enabling the retention of the vast majority of dissolved salts on the concentrated water side. Every drop of industrial wastewater must go through 42 refined progressive treatment stages, completing filtration, desalination, purification, and refinement.

The result is that over 90% of the wastewater is converted into high-quality Reclaimed Water, supplied to park enterprises for recycling in industrial production and plant landscaping. The project achieves a water resource recovery rate of up to 98%, far exceeding conventional process levels.

III. Concentrated Water Is No Longer an Unsolvable Burden

Membrane desalination has an unavoidable byproduct: concentrated brine. After salts and impurities are concentrated, direct discharge amounts to moving pollution from water to elsewhere; treatment, on the other hand, means high evaporation energy consumption. This is also why past industrial wastewater near-zero liquid discharge projects commonly got "stuck" at the final stage.

This project's approach is to let the concentrated water complete its second life. After the remaining wastewater is concentrated into high-purity brine, it enters the evaporation and crystallization process, undergoing high-temperature evaporation, vapor-liquid separation, condensate recovery, and crystallization, with additional processes such as centrifugal dewatering and fluidized bed drying, ultimately producing standardized industrial salt usable in fertilizer, printing and dyeing, and other fields. The secondary recovery and deep processing of sodium chloride further extends the industrial chain.

The economic significance of this combination lies in transforming concentrated water from a waste requiring paid disposal into a product with market value. Although the energy consumption of the evaporation and crystallization stage remains considerable, the design of cascading purification and cyclic concentration has minimized the water volume and energy consumption entering the salt evaporation equipment—the more thorough the upstream membrane concentration, the smaller the downstream evaporation load.

IV. The Business Logic of Near-Zero Liquid Discharge for Industrial Wastewater Is Changing

In the past, the primary motivation for enterprises to pursue near-zero liquid discharge was compliance. With the improvement of water resource pricing, discharge permit constraints, and green manufacturing evaluation systems, the calculus is being rewritten:

• Reclaimed Water Is an Alternative Water Source, Not Just an Emission Reduction Outcome——In water-scarce regions, a 98% recovery rate means an equivalent reduction in fresh water procurement, and the value of water prices and water abstraction quotas can be directly counted as revenue.
• By-product Salt Is a Product, Not Just Solid Waste——The market for standardized industrial salt determines whether this link is a cost center or a profit center. Whether there are supporting salt-consuming enterprises within the industrial park directly affects project feasibility.
• Energy Consumption Is the Decisive Operating Variable——The membrane section and evaporation section account for the highest proportion of energy consumption. The selection of front-end concentration efficiency and energy recovery devices has a far greater impact on twenty-year lifecycle costs than equipment price differences.
• Operational Capability Is Scarcer Than Process Packages——In a system with 42 process stages, membrane fouling, scaling, or improper chemical dosing ratios in any one stage will propagate through the entire system. The experience of long-term stable operation is often harder to replicate than the process itself.

V. Prerequisites for Replicability

The promotion of this type of model has its boundaries. At minimum, three conditions must be assessed:

• Stability of Wastewater Volume and Quality——Membrane systems are sensitive to influent fluctuations. If the industrial park's industrial structure is too dispersed, water quality fluctuations will significantly drive up pretreatment costs.
• Outlet for Concentrated Brine——Crystallized salt must have a stable downstream destination; otherwise, stockpiling creates a new disposal burden. In-park circulation is the optimal solution.
• Energy Costs——Evaporative crystallization is an energy-intensive stage. In regions with high electricity prices or tight steam sources, economic viability will decline significantly.

In scenarios where these three conditions are simultaneously met, the closed loop of "wastewater treatment—reclaimed water reuse—brine salt extraction" has strong vitality. This is precisely the significance of the Ganquanbao project: it did not stop at purifying wastewater to dischargeable standards, but achieved full recovery and recycling of wastewater and waste salt, truly "squeezing every last drop" out of industrial wastewater resources.

As new energy and new materials industries continue to cluster in Xinjiang and other regions, the demand for high-salinity wastewater treatment will continue to grow. Whether such projects can move from demonstration to routine depends on the long-term performance of operational data and whether the by-product salt market can stably absorb new capacity.

TIANYI TECH Co., Ltd. (TIANYI LIMITED) has long been deeply engaged in the fields of wastewater treatment and reclaimed water reuse. Centering on three major directions—low-carbon processes, resource recovery, and smart operations—it provides full-chain services from solution design, equipment manufacturing, engineering construction to operation management for municipal wastewater treatment plants, industrial parks, and various water-using entities. With the goal of "stable compliance, energy saving and consumption reduction, and resource circulation," the company continuously helps customers reduce operating costs and enhance system resilience in the green and low-carbon transition.

Source: On-site report on the Urumqi Ganquanbao Economic and Technological Development Zone wastewater resource utilization project (2026年 early 10月) and related public information.