MOU signed by MEUJ and IWAR Institute of TU-Darmstadt

    July 25^th, with a witness of both Chinese and German national flags, a momorandum of understanding about technical cooperation on wastewater treatment in ZhongDe Metal Eco-City by the Metal Enterprises Union of Jieyang and IWAR Institute Darmstadt University of Technology. According to the understanding, in the near future, depending on the technology from IWAR Institute, a global leading SEMIZENTRAL center of water supply and pollution discharge will be set up in ZhongDe Metal Eco-City, ensuring to achieve ‘pollution free’, as an Eco-City of a real sense will stand erect by Rongjiang River.

    This is one of the fruitful results achieved during the recent visit of Germany by Jieyang municipal trade and economic delegation. Grafted by German environmental protection technology in a high position, ZhongDe Metal Eco-City will be certainly promoted to seize a strategic commanding point in future competition and a discourse power over market.

    How Rhine can be changed from ‘an European sewer’ in the past into now the beautiful scenery is a key journey of the visit of Jieyang municipal trade and economic delegation. With a upsurge of industrialization development in the beginning and the middle of the last century, a large number of enterprises in chemical and metallurgical industry were built up around Rhine and the industrial effluents discharged from both sides along the river led to the rapid deterioration of water quality and the almost vanishing of fish and shrimps in the river, therefore being called ‘European sewer’. Environmental accidents taking place frequently awakened the environmental awareness of the government, enterprises and people along the river. The government and enterprises increase the input of environmental protection to develop the environmental protection technology and curb the pollution in Rhine, so now the ecological environment of Rhine is basically recovered, and the Rhine has become a good example of curbing river pollution globally for its beautiful landscape on both sides.

    There are over 3,000 enterprises by the Rhine in Germany and the key to ensure the clean water in inside Germany is the most advanced environmental protection technology in the world today.

    As one of Germany’s leading technical universities, the TU-Darmstadt’s IWAR Institute addresses matters related to water, sewage and refuse treatment in long term. In 2010, at the ‘Experience the quality of life’ Exhibition at the German Center Shanghai and Chinese ‘Urban Planet’ pavilion at the World Expo, IWAR Institute presented their latest research result, the SEMIZENTRAL approach, offering global leading innovative solutions for reliable water supply, wastewater and waste treatment, energy self-sufficient operation, which receive considerable attention from various countries in the world. In addition, ‘Sino-German clean water innovation research cooperation project’ will be presented as a demonstration project at 2014 Qingdao International Horticultural Exposition, which signed by the minister of China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) Wan Gang and Federal Minister of Education and Research (BMBF) Schavan.

    Pro. Dr. Wagner from TU-Darmstadt’s IWAR Institute extends his warm reception to Jieyang municipal trade and economic delegation. Both sides have discussions about the detailed cooperation on wastewater treatment technology in ZhongDe Metal Eco-City, achieving a series of cooperative consensus and signing the MOU, in which both sides agree on taking advantages of IWAR Institute’s technology to set up a SEMIZENTRAL infrastructural system of high resource efficiency on water and refuse, relying on German advanced wastewater treatment technology to set up a demonstration platform of energy conservation and emission reduction in China.

    Pro. Dr. Wagner says that Chinese friends from afar head for Germany for high-end cooperation, which presents the strategic vision of Jieyang basing on globalization to plan industrial transformation and upgrading and keeping a close watch on the world leading technology to construct ecological culture. ZhongDe Metal Eco-City is an innovative exploration of new industrialization for both China and Germany, throughout which ecological and environmental factors run. The cooperation between both sides is believed to be productive and enable ZhongDe Metal Eco-City to be a new paradigm of Sino-Germany cooperation.

    The SEMIZENTRAL approach is built upon the comprehensive considerations of various different material flow and energy (including drinking water, wastewater and refuse), through the adjustment and the integrated treatment to create synergistic effect. An important component in the approach is the cyclic utilization of gray water in domestic sewage, in order to save 30% daily water consumption and reduce wastewater disposal of equal quantity, much saving energy consumption in the same time. After listening to Pro. Dr. Wagner’s introduction of the SEMIZENTRAL approach, the entrepreneurs of Jieyang municipal economic and trade delegation are all excited. One of them says, ‘Currently China is entering an acceleration stage in urbanization, leading to the population gathering in urban places, the increasing need of drinking water and the challenge that the quantities of wastewater and refuse bring to the city development. The technology will be introduced into ZhongDe Metal Eco-City from IWAR Institute and the wastewater treatment project will be constructed to explore a new way of green, circulation and low carbon for the development of urbanization in China.

    Huang Shihong, chairman of supervisory board in the Metal Enterprises Union of Jieyang, tells the writer, ‘ZhongDe Metal Eco-City highlights the idea of ECOLOGY all among the concept, the planning design and the construction. In the Metal Surface Treatment Eco-industrial Park being constructed, the wastewater treatment technology of the mechanical vacuum evaporation is adopted including the core membrane concentration technology which is world-class technology in Germany, therefore in the whole process the utilization of electroplating wastewater can reach 99.64%. On the other hand, the domestic sewage treatment in the Metal Eco-City will adopt the technology from German IWAR Institute and set up a SEMIZENTRAL approach, relying on German advanced environmental protection technology to construct a zero release new Eco-City.’

    According to the planning, ZhongDe Metal Eco-City is surrounded by hills and lakes, and a forest park will be developed connecting four lakes to form a new pattern of ‘the integration of woods, hills, lakes, industry and city’. Wealth and happy life are achieved in the green ecology, and a beautiful picture scroll of times in Jieyang is being slowly unfolded.