CASIC Kaitian Water Wins PCB Assembled Industrial Wastewater Treatment Project, a First-Scale Application in China

Printed circuit board (PCB) wastewater ranks among the most difficult streams in industrial water treatment. Unlike municipal sewage or single-component industrial effluent, PCB manufacturing involves long process chains and heavy chemical dosing, producing water that simultaneously carries complexed heavy metals, high-concentration ammonia nitrogen, organic solvents, complexing agents and multiple cross-contaminants — any one of which can defeat a conventional treatment process.

Against this backdrop, Hunan CASIC Kaitian Water Co., Ltd. has won the contract for an assembled industrial wastewater treatment project for a listed PCB manufacturer in Guangdong province. According to public information, China's PCB sector had no precedent of assembled wastewater facilities deployed at scale, making this the sector's first such application.

The significance lies not merely in another industrial wastewater project, but in systematically transferring a construction approach long proven in the municipal sector — prefabricated/assembled wastewater facilities — into the PCB industry. Assembled plants are common in municipal applications but had essentially never been scaled into PCB manufacturing in China.

CASIC Kaitian Water brings full-chain and full-lifecycle service depth, with an integrated capability spanning R&D and design, core equipment manufacturing, engineering and construction, and operation services. On the PCB project the company is therefore responsible not for a single process step or equipment package, but for influent classification, process matching, core equipment and long-term operational performance alike. The real test for industrial wastewater treatment comes not at acceptance but across thousands of subsequent operating days of consistent compliance.

The company also draws on upstream electronics-industry experience. It has previously served benchmark clients in semiconductor and display-device wastewater — including TPK, Haicang Semiconductor, Shaohua Semiconductor and AECC Power — giving it a deep understanding of the "complex composition, stringent standards, zero tolerance for failure" character of electronics-sector effluent. Since PCB and semiconductor wastewater sit close together on the pollutant spectrum, this process experience forms the basis of its PCB capability.

The company framed the win as both a pioneering application and a deliberate choice of a harder track during an industry downturn: applying municipal-grade construction efficiency to semiconductor-grade process requirements.