Dongying Port Reclaimed Water Reuse Project (China's first comprehensive reuse scheme for a coastal chemical park; 10,000 m³/d demineralized water in Phase I)

The Dongying Port reclaimed-water reuse project sits in the Dongying Port Economic Development Zone, Shandong, next to the municipal-industrial wastewater plant that supplies its feed. Completed and put into operation in March 2026, it is described by Xinhua as China's first comprehensive reclaimed-water scheme built for a coastal chemical park. Tertiary effluent from the park's 40,000 m³/d wastewater plant is polished into high-purity demineralized water and piped to chemical and new-material enterprises, replacing both on-site demineralization units and Yellow River withdrawals. The park had long depended on Yellow River intake, with rising cost and tight water quotas, while discharging large volumes of complex industrial effluent. The zone authority brought reclaimed water into its unified water allocation, tightened new withdrawal permits and tendered the plant as a BOT concession; China Power Construction Huadong Engineering Corporation invested, built and operates it through Dongying Huadong Water Affairs Co., Ltd., with total investment of RMB 240 million. Because the effluent mixes petroleum, inorganic salts and phenolics and fluctuates on annual, monthly and daily cycles, the process combines a three-stage pretreatment (high-rate sedimentation, high-flow filtration and single-end encapsulated ultrafiltration), two-end water production with energy recovery, three-stage reverse osmosis and EDI electrodeionization. Conductivity is held below 0.2 µS/cm, meeting the GB/T 12145-2016 boiler make-up water standard. First water was produced on 31 December 2025 and trial operation began in March 2026. Phase I delivers 10,000 m³/d of demineralized water, with 20,000 m³/d planned by the end of 2028, converting about 10 million tonnes of reclaimed water a year. Two enterprises have signed supply agreements totalling 7,000 m³/d; centralized supply is priced at about RMB 12/t against roughly RMB 14/t for captive units. Dual incoming power feeds and a backup source switching system are designed for a 99.9% annual availability. Sources: Xinhua, 'Dongying, Shandong: reclaimed water drives circular development in an industrial park', 7 March 2026, http://sd.news.cn/20260307/c9b475c6b793436bac449112dc921d0f/c.html; Shandong Provincial Department of Water Resources, 18 August 2026, http://wr.shandong.gov.cn/xwzx_319/ztzl/dqjj/jsxcy/202608/t20260818_4983607.html. Image: aerial photo of the Dongying Port reclaimed-water plant, showing the primary and secondary product-water tanks and the membrane workshop beside the Bohai coast, taken on 6 March 2026 during commissioning (source: Xinhua, photo by Guo Xulei).