Reclaimed water helps tech companies meet goals
In a workshop cleaner than an operating room, six automatic production lines for liquid crystal displays work simultaneously.
Entry is highly restricted to prevent dust particles.
In stark contrast to the demanding environment, however, water reclaimed from sewage is used to clean glass and semiconductor materials in a production process that lasts for five to seven days.
Welcome to the production base of BOE Technology Group, which claims to produce a quarter of the world’s liquid crystal displays, in Yizhuang, Beijing.
As Yizhuang endeavors to promote socioeconomic development that features water conservation, BOE is just a microcosm of ongoing efforts in the economic and technological development area.
When BOE planned to start the production base for a thin film transistor in Yizhuang in 2010, the area had run out of its water consumption allowances.
The solution offered by local authorities was for the company to use reclaimed water to meet its demand.
“The production of liquid crystal displays needs high-purity water. We didn’t yet know whether reclaimed water could be processed to meet the demand. There was no real precedent to draw on,” said Gu Xiangchun, deputy general manager of BOE Beijing.
There would be no way back after the launch of the project, following an investment of over 28 billion yuan ($4.3 billion). To avoid risks that might emerge, the enterprises designed the production lines based on the characteristics of reclaimed high-purity water, he said.
“It now appears that we have succeeded. The line has been running well for 10 years,” Gu said, adding that if not for the reclaimed water the project would consume over 7 million metric tons of tap water a year.
The reclaimed water not only works but is also a lot cheaper, saving the company about 10 million yuan a year, he said.
Gu also said that while both tap and recycled water need to be processed for use, processing recycled water needs fewer chemical agents.
Sun Jingyan, a Yizhuang government official, said BOE is only one of 19 companies that have turned to reclaimed high-purity water to meet production needs.
Currently, the industrial sector in the development area consumes 13.6 million tons of reclaimed water a year, which is over 40 percent of the sector’s total annual consumption.
She said the use of reclaimed water has helped ensure the successful launch of new projects despite the area having exhausted its industrial use allowances.
Yizhuang has also rolled out measures to restrict the introduction of projects that consume a lot of water and phase out existing ones as it enhances the monitoring of water consumption to ramp up conservation.
Li Xu, an executive with Beijing Yizhuang Water, a State-owned company controlled by the Yizhuang government, said that despite his company’s two processing plants contributing two-thirds of the reclaimed high-purity water consumed in Yizhuang, it has yet to break even.
The company’s feasibility report for the project points out that, without considering the government’s investment in pipes, the plants could make a profit only after 75 percent of its production capacity was put into operation. Currently, only half of the capacity is running, he said.
But there has been good news. The company will start serving another two enterprises soon and Li said he expects there will be more customers as the precision instrument industry develops in the district.