On December 4, 2012, a signing ceremony of strategic cooperation framework agreement between HWTT and UK Modern Water was solemnly held at Xihu State guesthouse in Hangzhou. Mr. Zheng Genjiang, the director of HWTT, and Mr. Neil McDougall, the executing president of UK Modern Water, signed in the agreement on behaves of both parties respectively; Mr. Brian Davidson, the consul general of British Consulate General in Shanghai, Mr. Zhou Huafu, the director of Zhejiang Province Development and Reformation Commission, Mr. Lu Shaohua, the vice general manager of BlueStar (Group) Co., Ltd, CHEMCHINA, attended the meeting and delivered speeches. Mr.Gao Congjie, the member of Chinese Academy of Engineering and expert of Chinese seawater desalination, Qu Jianguo, the director of Department of Resource Environment, Zhejiang Province Development and Reformation Commission, Mr. Paul Carter, the consul of trade and investment, British Consulate General in Shanghai, Mr. Simon Stewart, the chief inspector of trade service, the UK-China Trade Association, Ms. Pan Hualin, the delegate in chief of the UK-China Trade Association in Hangzhou etc., were invited to attend the signing ceremony. The ceremony was presided over by Tan Yongwen, the general engineer of HWTT.
UK Modern Water is a listed company of starting undertaking in London Stock and Exchange and owns many enterprises with seawater desalination core technologies, especially in the field of forward osmosis seawater desalination, it owns a set of patents, and is also only a company which is operating a forward osmosis seawater desalination plant in the world at present. HWTT is a firm the earliest in China which is engaged in the researches on seawater desalination technologies, and its membrane modules and devices, and their development and industrialization, and is also the largest supplier and engineering contractor in the field of seawater desalination and water treatment by membrane processes domestically. The signing framework agreement of both parties’ strategic cooperation marks that the both firms will carry out diversified cooperation in respect of the seawater desalination technology by forward osmosis.
Water is an indispensible resource for existence of human society. Insufficient water resource and its non-uniform time-space distribution have turned into an important bottleneck to restrain sustainable development of social economy in our country. Seawater desalination is a technology of broadening and strengthening water source, while as a frontier desalination technology recognized internationally at present, the forward osmosis technology possesses the advantages of low energy consumption, high efficiency, low operational cost, long service life etc., and shows huge market potential in the fields of seawater and brackish water desalination, wastewater treatment and intermediate water reuse, chemical separation and concentration, energy development and utilization etc.; at present, there is no precedent of its engineering application in China, thus the both firms’ cooperation hand in hand will promote extensive application of forward osmosis technology in the fields of seawater desalination and water treatment in China, and bring new opportunities for rapid development of seawater desalination industries in China; it also heralds that the technological level of Zhejiang Provincial seawater desalination will go to a new stage.
