Perspective of Experts

     Guide: To sum up, “It is to link industrial and agricultural production processes with the company's technologies to make industrial activities more reasonably integrated into the natural cycle.” said the Technocrat. In order to ensure the balance between economic development and environmental protection, green development can be realized through “treating waste with waste and turning waste into treasures”.

     Just after the Spring Festival of 2017, Shi Hanxiang, an Environmental Expert, has invested in the new practice to combat fog and haze. At the end of last year, his circular economic experiment in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, in which “steel slag is used to treat waste gas and waste residue is used to treat waste land”, achieved a stage success, which gave him more confidence in the management of air pollution.

    “with the recycling technology, Baogang Group has treated the waste gas, eliminated steel slag and repaired the saline-alkali soil.”said Shi Hanxiang. For more than 20 years, he cooperated with Ningbo Taiji Environmental Protection Equipment Co., Ltd. and developed a series of circular economy technologies in slag desulfurization and denitrification, DS multiphase reactor, saline-alkali sandy wasteland transformation, etc., in order to solve the problem of flue gas pollution in smelting industry and formed a set of practical Environmental protection concept—“treat waste with waste and turn waste into treasure; use circularly and evenly develop”.

     To sum up, “It is to link industrial and agricultural production processes with the company's technologies to make industrial activities more reasonably integrated into the natural cycle.” said the Technocrat. In order to ensure the balance between economic development and environmental protection, green development can be realized through “treating waste with waste and turning waste into treasures”.

     From the reality of China, the cycle technology can not only control pollution, but also reduce the production cost of iron and steel, thermal power and other industries, so as to explore feasible ways for the micro-implementation of supply-side structural reform and help implement the green development concept.

    “Science and technology innovation serves as the main battlefield for economy. As an expert in technological invention and entrepreneur who realizes the industrialization of technology, we have to make great efforts in recycling technology to serve the main economic battlefield, when the “3 wastes” of industry circulate with the agricultural production chain, and the “green water and green mountains are the silver mountains of golden mountains”  will realize the beautiful vision. Shi Hanxiang says, the sense of urgency that makes this interdisciplinary talent is deeply responsible.

      Put on a “Green Mask” for Beijing in Inner Mongolia

      At the beginning of February, Shi Hanxiang was still quite excited about the news of the success of the Inner Mongolia experiment. Not long ago, Shi Hanxiang's team reaped another crop of clover grass on nearly 100 mus of saline-alkali soil in Hongqi Village, Xianfeng Town, Urad Front Banner, Bayan Nur, Inner Mongolia.

    “This means that, after Zhejiang, Hebei and other places, our experiment of permanently transforming saline-alkali sandy wasteland has achieved new success in Inner Mongolia.” said Shi Hanxiang. His team experimented just two years of planting here and has harvested four cloves. Previously, the local people also adopted a variety of ways of transformation, but in a few years, the lands would return to the old saline-alkali state.

      This is a critical link of Shi Hanxiang's experiment of “circulating fog and haze control” in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area.

  “The dust of salt-alkali sand in the upper tuyere of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei is the source of smog that we want to ‘block’”. Shi Hanxiang believes that the source of fog and haze, besides automobile exhaust and biomass combustion, is mainly industrial emissions and salt-alkali sandy wasteland, tailings and other bare land dust.

   “Coal electricity, iron and steel upstream and downstream production process constitute a complete ‘pollution' chain, the front end bare tailings dust, the middle end waste gas waste residue discharge, the back end of the traditional pollution prevention and control to form two pollution, such as lime (stone) gypsum method absorption of sulfur dioxide to form a large number of waste gypsum, all over the steel plant surrounding.” said he.

    “Waste”becomes the root of pollution. According to this, Shi Hanxiang came up with the cycling curing idea of“curing deserted with the deserted, turn the deserted into treasures, recycling and balanced development”, By using waste residue instead of lime (stone) gypsum method to absorb sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide in flue gas, producing by-product, which can be used to treat tailing mine, saline-alkali sandy wasteland or as raw material for making cement.

     This makes the “waste” in the process of production, used for soil improvement, so that mineral resources from the land, back to the land, the industrial process into the ecological cycle.

     The pilot project of Hongqi Village is the latest practice of this process. Shi Hanxiang team, with invention of circular economy equipment_DS multi-phase reactor and the use of steel slag Baogang Group, instead of the original lime (stone) absorption of sulfur dioxide in the flue gas, the production of desulphurization by-products near Baotou steel to transform the saline-alkali soil.

   “This has not only solved the problem of waste gases such as sulfur dioxide, but the disposal of waste steel slag has also been. the waste gypsum has also disappeared, and the bare land has been covered with a ‘green dust cover".” The Baogang Group representative said.

    “The steel plant's emissions are gone, the dust source is gone, and the circular economy experiment has achieved initial results. Inner Mongolia is the key area of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei atmospheric control. If it can be popularized in the end, it will be good for pollution control such as fog and haze.” said Shi Hanxiang.

     20-year “cycle technology” innovation path

    “treat waste with waste and turn waste into treasure; use circularly and evenly develop”. It seems simple, but it is more than 20 years of continuous research and practice of Shi Hanxiang . Over the past 20 years, this practitioner, who has no academic high-level theory, has continuously broken through various academic rules, constantly challenged old ideas, from being cornered to being  respect. This technocrat, who has not taken a single dip of knowledge abroad, has directly explored the concrete answers to development and balance, from setbacks to success. Individual destiny and the tide of the times rise and fall at the same time in the key node.

      In the 1980s, a number of small factories for smelting non-ferrous metals sprang up in Shi's village, and Shi himself had one of those.

     The smelters made fortune for many villagers, but the small, green villages soon became unrecognisable. “The quilt left outside for dry, will be stick with a layer of black stuff.” Shi Hanxiang said that all the big trees outside the factory were burnt.

     In 1993, Shi Hanxiang went to Beijing to learn and was advised to: Treat sulfur dioxide with lime (stone)-gypsum method. But in the three years when this method had been put in practice, besides the technical problems, the most important thing is that as the business volume becomes larger, the gypsum produced by this method formed a continuous gypsum mountain inside and outside the factory. Domestic desulphurization gypsum contains a large amount of impurities, pressure, tensile strength is poor. Re-using value is not big, basic are abandoned, 4 stacked, sunny day flying, rainy day sewage cross-flow.

     According to statistics, about 100 million tons of desulphurization gypsum and phosphogypsum are produced in China every year, which will take a whole round of the earth if stacked into a wall with a cross-section of 1m2. To control the pollution, new pollutions are generated,some experts warned: Desulphurization gypsum is becoming the second largest source of pollution after sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide.

     This made Shi Hanxiang begin to doubt the lime (stone) gypsum method.

     On one side, it is the slag mountain, on the other side, it is mountains of gypsum and sulfur oxide. How to remove these “three mountains”, Shi Hanxiang had taken hard considerations, “sulfur oxide are extracted from the mine smelting , why can't they be used for slag absorption?” Since sulfur is an important acid element in soil, why can't we reclaim the saline-alkali soil?”

      Since 1996, he has worked hard to find a formula for the slag to absorb sulfur dioxide, to design a new built-in desulphurization tower, to modulate the by-product of desulphurization to make fertilizer, and even to design the equipment to produce the desulphurization tower from scratch. For more than two thousand days, countless experiments have been done, plans have been pushed, in August, 2001, a “multi-phase reactor” absorption tower was engineered, and then shocked the industry at home and abroad.

     The national authority institutes appraised that, the desulphurization effect of“multiphase reactor”is as high as 98.9%, 8% higher than the world developed countries reported. Its desulphurization by-product transformation saline-alkali soil effect, in the multi-field experiment result is remarkable, and has obtained praise of the international famous Salt Soil Agriculture Expert, Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission Nuclear Agriculture Institute Director Mazar H. Harvey (MazharH.Haqvi).

      Serve the main battlefield of economy with innovation, Enhance People's Well-being

      Taiji circular economy technology at the current stage in the iron and steel, thermal power industry advantage value, Baogang group has been in the regional circular economy pilot benefit. During the the National People's Congress (NPC) of the People's Republic of China and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in 2015, Li Chunlong, then General Manager of Baogang Group made an account with Xinhua News Agency. By employing Shi Hanxiang’s steel slag desulfurization and denitrification Circular Economy technology, Baogang Qinghua desulfurization project reduced annual emissions of about 7000 tons of sulfur dioxide, about 20000 tons of steel slag powder, saving 16000 tons of limestone. These produced about 26000 tons of “native fertilizer” for the transformation of 400 to 800 acres of saline-alkali sand wasteland, or used as cement raw materials, reduce carbon dioxide emissions of about 5000 tons.

      In order to reduce emission of sulfur dioxide, Baogang Group needs to consume about 980,000 tons of limestone per year, at RMB 200 per ton, which saves up to RMB 196 million, and the annual production of desulphurization gypsum, which is about 1.6 million tons, can not be used comprehensively. In addition, Baosteel produces 2-3 million tons of steel slag annually, with a comprehensive utilization rate of only 20-30% and an annual stock of more than 2 million tons. By using steel slag method to desulphurize, Baogang Group Co., Ltd. can remove about 1.2 million tons of steel slag powder every year. The desulphurization system of thermal power, chemical industry and metallurgical industry in Baotou area can remove 1 million tons of steel slag powder, and can remove steel slag mountain completely.

     The desulphurization residue produced by Baogang Group Co., Ltd. is used to transform the surrounding saline-alkali sandy wasteland. In the same year, crops such as grass and potatoes can be replanted to promote local agricultural and animal husbandry cultivation, breeding and deep processing industry chain.

      At the the National People's Congress （NPC）of the People's Republic of China and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in 2016, Cao Huiquan, Chairman of Hunan Valin Group responsed Bao Gang's comments. After using Shi Hanxiang's technology, the Group's subsidiary, Xiangtan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd reduced annual emissions by more than 6,500 tons of sulfur dioxide, saves 12,000 tons of limestone, digests more than 20,000 tons of steel slag tailings, and the desulphurization by-product becomes raw material for cement .

      The multi-phase reactor has excellent desulphurization performance and can efficiently treat high concentration sulfur dioxide flue gas. Take the annual output capacity of 10 million tons of steel as an example, the iron ore is mixed with 20% high-sulfur iron ore, the annual purchase cost of steel enterprises is saved byRMB 510 million, the annual consumption of steel slag is about 600,000 tons, the cost of desulphurization is reduced by RMB 80 million. About 1 million tons of desulphurization by-products can be used for  transforming saline-alkali sandy wasteland of about 30,000 acre or used as raw materials for cement, reducing steel slag and desulphurization by-products stacking area of about 160 mus.

     In thermal power industry, Shi Hanxiang uses fly ash desulphurization and denitrification cycle technology, taking a power plant in the north as an example, the power plant uses 60 million tons of coal annually to produce 10 million tons of fly ash, which contains about 45% alumina. The by-products produced by desulphurization and denitrification of fly ash can precipitate 1.5 million tons of electrolytic aluminum and 3 million tons of alum, resulting in an economic benefit of RMB 18 billion, and 5.5 million tons of by-product can be used to transform saline-alkali sandy wasteland of about 180,000 mus or as the raw material for making cement.

  “But the current extraction method is not yet scientific, alumina extraction will still produce as much solid wastes which can not be eliminated.” said Shi Hanxiang. If fly ash is used to absorb sulfur dioxide, “you have to use high-sulfur coal to produce enough sulfur dioxide so as to absorb all the fly ash.”

     This will not only save limestone, but also contribute to three large economic benefits: First, it makes full use of China's rich high-sulfur coal resources. Second, it reduces the cost of coal consumption in power plants. Third, it reduces the cost of electrolytic aluminum.

  “High-sulfur coal is about RMB 50 cheaper per tonne than low-sulfur coal, and this single one item can save RMB 3 billion in coal procurement costs.” said Shi Hanxiang. If the national thermal power plant produces 800 million tons of fly ash per year, the benefit is even more considerable.

    “Coal electricity, steel and other industries are the major sources of real economic costs such as manufacturing, and are major contributors to environmental pressures. If we change the idea of environmental protection and make it a source of benefit, it will be a good news for manufacturing industry.” said Shi Hanxiang.

     In the effort to promote environmental benefits and provide service to economy He is trying to improve the comprehensive management capability of the “multi-phase reactor”, which has been upgraded to the 5th generation and integrates desulphurization, denitrification, dust removal, water mist removal and recovery. “There are not only no exhaust gas emissions, we are tryin to make it produce invisible steam, for better visual effects.

     With the Central Government strengthening environmental protection and pollution control efforts, especially the idea of “green water and green mountains is gold montain and silver mountain”, Shi Hanxiang felt both excited and heavy duties. “Our technical workers have to work hard on recycling technologies, serve the main battlefield o feconomy. When the industrial wastes and the agricultural production chain are linked and interacted, the idea of “green water is golden mountain silver mountain” is realized.