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Faced with challenges such as rising raw material costs, meager profits from traditional soda ash production methods, increasing pressure to meet environmental regulations, and high energy consumption, how can the soda ash industry overcome its development bottlenecks? At the 2025 Soda Ash Technology Conference held recently in Wuxi, Jiangsu, experts attending the conference noted that rational use of resources, reduction of production costs and emissions, and intelligent development will be key strategies for improving the quality and efficiency of the soda ash industry. Improving resource efficiency, saving energy and reducing costs: The Alxa region in Inner Mongolia has abundant reserves of natural soda ash, which provides the conditions necessary for its production. However, water resources in this area are relatively scarce; therefore, finding ways to save water is key to effective production management. Through a series of explorations, Inner Mongolia Boyuan Yingen Chemical Co., Ltd. found an effective solution to this problem: in the cooling stage of the alkali production process, the company adopted the approach of using air cooling instead of water cooling to develop a full-process air-cooling system for water conservation, by installing multiple air coolers and thus achieving both water and energy savings. Guangdong Southern Alkali Industry Co., Ltd. turns waste into treasure. Feng Weidong, head of the company’s Strategic Development Department, said that by introducing high-pressure diaphragm filter presses, they can not only produce low-chloride white slurry efficiently, enabling the reuse of this slurry as a resource, but also significantly reduce solid waste emissions. Focusing on the cooling stage in soda ash production, HANNENG (Suzhou) Energy Saving Technology Co., Ltd. has developed customized designs for soda ash cooling equipment taking into account the differences in water quality across various regions. This ensures that there is appropriate equipment for each type of water quality, and such equipment is resistant to high temperatures and corrosion; moreover, its waste heat recovery efficiency exceeds 90%. Zhang Houqing, director and deputy general manager of Solex’s China service center, introduced Solex’s cooling technology. They utilize a uniform dense-phase conveying technique to ensure that the product particles are cooled or heated evenly, and they employ heat transfer plates for indirect heat transfer in order to cool the materials, thereby achieving resource savings. Technological innovation for reducing consumption and emissions: The caustic soda production process using the combined alkali method generates the by-product ammonium chloride. Its drying has long relied on fluidized bed technology, but this approach presents issues such as high energy consumption, large amounts of exhaust gas, and difficulties in treatment. In response to this, Chengdu Tianbao Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Engineering Co., Ltd. proposed a solution to replace the fluidized bed with a rotary dry ammonium furnace. According to Wang Qingzong, the company’s general manager, compared with fluidized bed boilers, this type of boiler not only reduces the electricity consumption per unit of product as well as the steam consumption, thereby significantly improving thermal efficiency, but it also greatly reduces exhaust emissions. Dalian Huajie Equipment Co., Ltd. has focused its energy-saving efforts on the \"discharge temperature\". According to Jiao Bo, the deputy head of the company’s technology development department, they developed a steam rotary dry ammonium furnace by focusing on the key energy-consuming factor of the ammonium chloride discharge temperature. This approach enabled them to maintain the discharge temperature between 85°C and 95°C, ensuring long-term operation of the equipment, reducing heat loss due to material loss, and eliminating the need for subsequent cooling processes – resulting in significant energy savings. Reducing energy consumption in the production process is key to saving energy. Dai Zhongjing, head of the Production Management Department and director of the ammonia synthesis plant at Zhongyan Anhui Hong Sifang Co., Ltd., explained that the company upgraded its coal transportation and crushing systems on the fuel side, thereby improving fuel efficiency. It also explored ways to make use of energy in a hierarchical manner, achieving waste heat recovery and multiple uses of water resources, which resulted in significant savings in energy consumption and water use. In addition, Southern Alkali Industry also shared its practical experience in improving quality and efficiency through technological upgrades. By optimizing the continuous feeding system in the lime kilns, they reduced energy consumption in production; they also developed efficient dust removal devices to cut down emissions of free alkali and alkali dust. Intelligence drives improvement and efficiency. Currently, intelligence has become an “accelerator” for enhancing quality and efficiency in the soda ash industry. Wu Jingquan, head of the Technology Department at Shandong Haihua Co., Ltd.’s soda ash plant, explained that the company has aimed at replacing human labor with machinery, reducing the need for manual work through automation, and achieving operation without any human intervention through intelligence, thereby developing intelligent systems that help improve quality and efficiency. Among them, production control systems act as a \"smart brain,\" ensuring the smooth operation of the alkali production process without any deviations. The intelligent equipment monitoring system functions like a \"health monitor,\" continuously collecting data on equipment performance to enable early detection of potential problems, thus providing a safeguard for the stable and safe operation of the equipment. The production execution system and the enterprise resource planning system together form an \"information hub\" that enables centralized management of production-related information. Intelligent inspection robots and intelligent logistics systems replace human workers in carrying out inspections, thereby improving efficiency and reducing costs. Hangzhou HollySys Automation Co., Ltd. reduces energy consumption in steam pipelines and circulating water systems by implementing intelligent control throughout the entire process; it also enables real-time monitoring of product quality, thus facilitating full-life-cycle management of equipment operation and maintenance. Gao Hongsheng, the company’s director of solutions and an expert in Inner Mongolia’s energy industry, explained that the intelligent and precise dosing system ensures accurate measurement control, the evaporation crystallization optimization control system allows for dynamic adjustment of the evaporation crystallization temperature, and the intelligent automatic tower inversion system for carbonization towers enables one-click automatic operation. The intelligence at the end of material transportation is also an important factor in improving quality and efficiency in the soda ash industry. By utilizing industrial robot loading systems, Kaos Intelligent Equipment Technology Co., Ltd. has achieved intelligent loading of soda ash raw materials, equipment, and products. The loading solutions are suitable for various application scenarios, offering high efficiency, strong safety, and low costs, thereby endowing the \"last mile\" of the soda ash industry with intelligent capabilities.