Zhejiang issues Air Pollutant Emission Standard for Chemical Fiber Industry

Recently, the people's Government of Zhejiang Province officially issued and implemented the "Air Pollutant Emission Standard for Chemical Fiber Industry" (DB33/ 2563m 2022) (hereinafter referred to as the "Standard"). The Standard, which is led by the Provincial Academy of Environmental Sciences, is the country's first local standard for the emission of air pollutants from the chemical fiber industry.

Zhejiang is a major province of chemical fiber production, and its output has been ranked first in the country since 2002, and the industry has always been one of the key governance industries in Zhejiang. At present, there is no special air pollutant control standard for chemical fiber industry in China. For the industrial polymerization section, it mainly adopts the Petrochemical Industry Pollutant Emission Standard (GB 31571 Mir 2015) or the Synthetic Resin Industry Pollutant Emission Standard (GB 31572 Mel 2015). In view of the downstream spinning enterprises, the "Air Pollutant Comprehensive Emission Standard" (GB 16297 Mel 1996) is mainly used, but the above standards have some problems, such as lack of industry pertinence, lack of industry characteristic pollution factors or too loose limits of comprehensive emission standards, which can no longer meet the current requirements of industry VOCs pollution control in Zhejiang. For this reason, the Provincial Department of Ecological Environment organized the Provincial Academy of Environmental Sciences to carry out the development of "standards".
 

The development of the Standard began in 2016 and lasted six years, and has gone through two rounds of soliciting opinions, two hearings and technical reviews, fully listening to the opinions and suggestions of industry experts, enterprise representatives, industry associations and other relevant opinions and suggestions, and fully linking up with the requirements of the relevant national standards.

The scope of application of the Standard

The Standard applies to the chemical fiber manufacturing industry (C28) specified in the National Economic Industry Classification, including cellulose fiber raw materials and fiber manufacturing (C281), synthetic fiber manufacturing (C282) and bio-based materials manufacturing (C283). It includes recycled fiber (recycled cellulose fiber, etc.), synthetic fiber (polyester, spandex, nylon, acrylic, polypropylene, vinylon, spandex, etc.) and recycled chemical fiber (recycled polyester, etc.). It is not suitable for inorganic fiber industry.

Implementation time of the Standard

The newly established enterprise will be implemented as of January 30, 2023. Existing enterprises grant a one-year transition period, which will take effect from January 1, 2024. If the requirements stipulated in the existing enterprise pollutant discharge license are wider than the Standard, the pollutant discharge license shall be changed according to law before the date of implementation of the Standard.

Organized emission control

 The Standard differentiates the process waste gas according to the type of chemical fiber products, and increases the industry organic characteristic pollutants (such as ethylene glycol, dimethylformamide, etc.) and oil mist index. Specific projects include five basic control items, such as particulate matter, oil mist, odor concentration, total non-methane hydrocarbons and total volatile organic compounds. There are 11 characteristic pollutant control projects such as ethylene glycol, acetaldehyde, formaldehyde, caprolactam, dimethylacetamide and so on. In terms of index limits, the same indicators are not lower than the special emission limits of the relevant national standards. At the same time, in order to strengthen the total VOCs emission control, the minimum removal efficiency requirements of pollutant treatment facilities are clarified, and for the existing enterprises which are unable to measure the inlet concentration of waste gas treatment facilities due to safety and other factors, it is proposed that material balance or other equivalent methods can be used to determine the treatment efficiency.

Unorganized emission control

The Standard strictly complies with the special control requirements of GB 37822 VOCs 2019, and controls the unorganized emission of enterprise VOCs. The standard of DB33/T 310007 in the integrated demonstration zone of the Yangtze River Delta is used to strengthen the control of leakage of equipment and pipeline components, and the unorganized emission of VOCs in the plant area is enforced as a mandatory requirement.

The Standard also sets enterprise boundary monitoring requirements, and puts forward factory boundary control requirements for toxic and harmful air pollutants such as benzene, acetaldehyde, formaldehyde, carbon disulfide and odor concentration.
 

The release of the Standard is conducive to the control and emission reduction of VOCs and oil mist in the industry, and will further promote the improvement of environmental air quality in chemical fiber agglomeration areas in Zhejiang. At the same time, it unifies the implementation of air pollution emission standards for Zhejiang chemical fiber industry, avoids differences in the implementation of air pollution emission standards, helps the industry to further improve the level of eco-environmental management and green development of the industry and provides industry governance and management experience for the Yangtze River Delta region and even the whole country.