On January 8, at the 2018 National Science and Technology Award Conference, the Program “Key Technology of Heterogeneous Ion-Exchange Membranes Preparation and the Application”, completed by Hangzhou Water Treatment Technology Development Center as a participator, won the Second Prize of 2018 National Science and Technology Award. Professor Jin Keyong and Academician Gao Congjie were respectively listed as the third and the sixth achiever.

This conference aims to reward the scientific and technical personnel and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to China’s scientific and technological progress, socio-economic development. Totally 278 projects and seven technological experts were selected.

Ion-exchange membrane, for its special ionic selectivity, has important application value to material separation, chemical production, and other field, and can be widely applied for recycling of waste acid and lye in metallurgy, chemical industry, tombarthite industry, electronic etching and other fields. As one of the country’s new strategic materials, it plays a key role in the separation and purification of saline materials or near zero emission of saline wastewater.

Hangzhou Water Treatment Technology Development Center is one of the organizations that firstly carried out the research and application of ion-exchange membrane technology. Under the support of key program of National Natural Science Foundation of China and Hi-Tech Research and Development Program (863 Program) of China, the technical teamed led by Gao Congjie, through years of dedicated research, have overcome the several key technical challenges in preparation and application of heterogeneous ion-exchange membranes, and successfully developed the domestic heterogeneous ion-exchange membrane materials and bio-reactor, realizing the original innovation of heterogeneous ion-exchange membrane materials and integrated innovation of a complete set of technologies such as “membrane preparation – membrane plant – membrane application”, filling the gap of industrialization of heterogeneous ion-exchange membrane in China and breaking up foreign monopolies.

Driven by the implementation of the program, Hangzhou Water Treatment Technology Development Center has formed its patent technologies and core products with independent intellectual property rights in electrically-driven membrane technology field. Its self-developed serialized products, such as homogeneous membrane electrodialysis reactor[P1]  and bipolar membrane electrodialysis reactor, have been applied in more than 20 wastewater resourcezation and material separation programs, including Gansu tombarthite smelting wastewater, fertilizer wastewater (Guizhou Batian), coal chemical wastewater (Tengger, Inner Mongolia), refining wastewater (Shandong WONFULL)、printing and dyeing wastewater (Datang, Foshan), chlor-alkali chemical waste water (Dongxing, Inner Mongolia), fine chemical wastewater (JINLING) and wastewater of thermal power plant (Shandong Dongyue), realizing the recycling of Valuable materials such as acid, alkali and salt in wastewater. Consequently, the discharge amount of wastewater decreases up to 50,000,000 t/year. This not only solves the problem that affected the development of the enterprises for a long time, but also makes significant contributions to the promotion of overall technological progress in the industry. In the future, Hangzhou Water Treatment Technology Development Center will continue to uphold the corporate mission of “developing water treatment technology for the benefit of the whole society”, adhere to strategic ideology that “science and technology support industry and innovation drives development”, to carry out in-depth research and development of new water treatment technology and products, vigorously expand the innovation and application of membrane separation technology in water resources development and utilization, environmental protection, clean production and other fields, and continuously improve the self-service value and sustainable development capacity of the enterprises, for promoting the overall development of the industry.