The U.S. and China announced six new EcoPartnerships during the recent U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing, China. Among the new partnerships is a collaboration between Alabama-based Chemical and Metal Technologies (CMT) and China’s CPI Yuanda Environmental Protection Engineering Company. CPI Yuanda is a subsidiary of State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC), one of China’s largest generating power companies. 

The CMT-CPI Yuanda partnership will evaluate CMT’s new cleanup technology for removing heavy metals from industrial wastewater produced during capture of sulfur dioxide in a post-combustion flue gas desulphurization (FGD) unit.  The technology will be tested at SPIC’s Hechuan Flue Gas Comprehensive Experimental Base’s 2 x 300 MW coal-fired power plant in Chongqing, China.   A successful demonstration of CMT’s technology for wastewater cleanup would be followed by a demonstration of the technology for flue gas treatment. 

CMT has developed a sorbent to treat flue gas and wastewater from coal-burning power plants to remove mercury, heavy metals, selenium, and nitrates/nitrites.  The technology is expected to meet, or exceed, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regulations for wastewater. The technology has received third-party validation at lab scale in the U.S. The goal of the Yuanda demonstration is to clean the FGD wastewater to meet drinking water standards, which exceeds China’s current requirements.

The partnership between CMT and CPI Yuanda is a direct result of the companies’ participation in the recent Mercury and Fine Particulate Emission Control Workshop held under the joint Annex I: Power Generation and Annex IV: Energy & Environmental Technologies of the U.S.-China Fossil Energy Protocol (FEP).

The FEP is part of a broader, ongoing effort between the U.S. Department of Energy and China’s Ministry of Science and Technology to promote clean energy research and development on fossil energy technologies.  This partnership includes the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center, which facilitates U.S.-China collaboration on clean energy technology R&D, including carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies.