Thread Content
Jilin Petrochemical Fertilizer Plant saves 610,000 tons of water through three measures Author/Source: Date: 2022-12-04 Clicks: 39 On December 3, reporters learned from Jilin Petrochemical Fertilizer Plant that the plant continues to work on improving efficiency by focusing on water conservation; by implementing three measures – ensuring water treatment facilities meet standards, optimizing production processes, and carrying out technical upgrades – significant water savings have been achieved. As of November, a total of 610,000 tons of water had been saved this year, and the plant was awarded the title of “Water Conservation Enterprise in Jilin Province”. “The fertilizer plant is equipped with a water treatment facility designed to handle a flow rate of 20,000 cubic meters per hour. It is responsible for supplying industrial water to the chemical plants in the western part of Jilin Petrochemical Company, making it a true ‘heavy water user’. It features a large number of users, high water consumption, long pipelines, and complex management requirements. There are also issues such as leaks, unreasonable water use, and inadequate recovery of certain condensates; therefore, there is still significant potential for water conservation. ”The Party secretary and plant director of Jilin Petrochemical Fertilizer Plant said. It is reported that the plant has a total of 6 circulating water systems, which supply circulating cooling water to production units such as those for synthetic ammonia and butyl octanol. These systems have been in operation for nearly 20 years; their infrastructure is relatively old, and there are risks such as impurities in the water entering the heat exchange equipment, as well as material leaks that can affect water quality. In light of this, the factory launched a vigorous campaign to meet the standards for its circulating water systems. By thoroughly identifying the problems involved, it formulated a series of targeted measures and strengthened the management of basic operations, resulting in the concentration ratio of all 6 circulating water systems exceeding 5. This achieved zero discharge of circulating water, saving nearly 90,000 tons of water compared to the previous year. The ammonia synthesis unit of this plant generates about 50 tons per hour of steam at 0.6 MPa pressure. As originally designed, this steam was intended to supply the urea production unit, but since that unit was not built, the entire amount of steam had to be vented, resulting in waste. At the same time, the low-pressure steam used in the plants for producing butyl octanol and styrene must be purchased externally; this combination of both production and procurement increases production costs. To address this issue, the plant optimized its production processes and made use of idle pipelines to channel the 0.6 MPa steam generated as a by-product of the ammonia synthesis unit into facilities for producing butyl octanol and styrene. This allowed for the complete recovery and reuse of the waste steam, reducing the amount of low-pressure steam that needed to be purchased for these facilities. In summer, some of this steam was also supplied to other units within the company, generating benefits for the plant. According to statistics, optimizing this process saves around 150,000 tons of water. In addition, the factory continues to increase its efforts in technological upgrades, striving to enhance efficiency by improving the technical level of its equipment. For example, to address issues such as the inefficient use of steam and the waste of energy resulting from the direct discharge of steam condensate inside production equipment, the plant implemented projects for optimizing steam and condensate utilization in the western area, as well as for improving energy efficiency and water conservation in the 441 circulating water system. New sets of high-efficiency intelligent heat exchange units were installed, closed-loop condensate recovery systems were put in place, and two new circulating cooling towers along with two set of side filtration systems were constructed. These measures led to a significant reduction in the plant’s energy consumption, with nearly 370,000 tons of water being saved.