Municipal and industrial wastewater contain vast amounts of low‑grade, stable waste heat, representing a core potential resource for energy conservation and carbon reduction. In China, waste heat from wastewater accounts for 20%–35% of the total waste heat, with recoverable heat equivalent to approximately 150 million tons of standard coal equivalent (tce) per year. The waste heat temperature typically ranges from 5 °C to 80 °C, with large flow rates and continuous discharge, offering high recovery value. However, the current average recovery rate in China is only 25%–35%, far below the 60%–70% level in developed countries. More than 60% of the waste heat is directly discharged with the wastewater, resulting in enormous energy waste and environmental thermal pollution.
Industrial wastewater is characterized by high turbidity, high hardness, high salinity, and a wide variety of pollutants. Furthermore, the water quality varies greatly across different processes and has complex compositions. During heat recovery, the heat extraction equipment faces a series of technical challenges such as fouling, scaling, corrosion, and abrasion.
To address these pain points and difficulties in wastewater heat recovery, OMEXELL has pioneered the industry‑first Vortex Tube‑Plate Series Waste Heat Recovery Units, which effectively overcome the four major technical challenges of fouling, scaling, corrosion, and abrasion in industrial wastewater heat recovery. These units have been successfully applied in over a hundred projects across various industries, including municipal raw sewage, metallurgical wastewater, chemical wastewater, papermaking wastewater, and textile dyeing wastewater. By the end of 2025, the application of OMEXELL’s high‑tech vortex tube‑plate waste heat recovery technology is expected to help users save 13.5 million GJ of energy annually, equivalent to saving 660,000 tce per year and reducing CO₂ emissions by 1.7 million tons per year – which is equivalent to planting 21 million trees. This delivers substantial economic and social benefits and supports China’s national energy strategy of achieving "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality."
