Yeongpung Registers Patent for 'Zero Liquid Discharge System'... "100% Reuse"

"Building a Sustainable Industrial Ecosystem"

Youngpoong announced on the 6th that it has completed the patent registration for the eco-friendly facility 'Zero Liquid Discharge System,' which reprocesses 100% of wastewater generated from the non-ferrous metal smelting process and reuses it in the process.

The official patent title is 'Zero Liquid Discharge Equipment,' and the inventors include CEO Park Young-min along with four Youngpoong executives and employees.

View of Yeongpung Seokpo Smelter Zero Discharge System. Provided by Yeongpung

Youngpoong introduced the Zero Liquid Discharge System in May 2021 at its main business site, the Youngpoong Seokpo Smelter in Bonghwa-gun, Gyeongbuk Province, and has been operating it stably to date.

Youngpoong's Zero Liquid Discharge System is an eco-friendly water treatment system that does not discharge wastewater generated from the smelting process externally but reprocesses all of it into clean water and recycles it in the process.

This method purifies the wastewater and then heats it at high temperatures to collect steam, enabling 100% reuse of clean water, while impurities are solidified and treated separately. Unlike conventional vacuum or reduced-pressure methods, it is designed optimally for the smelting process, minimizing the issue of heavy metal scale formation and allowing stable operation.

When introduced in 2021, Youngpoong invested 30.9 billion KRW to install three evaporative concentrators and one crystallizer in the first phase, and in 2023, it invested an additional 15.4 billion KRW to expand by adding one evaporative concentrator and one crystallizer in the second phase.

Currently, it processes an average of 2,000 to 2,500 cubic meters of process water daily, reusing all of it in the process, thereby saving approximately 880,000 cubic meters of industrial water annually.

CEO Park said, "Youngpoong's Zero Liquid Discharge System is the result of our executives and employees' dedication and efforts to build a sustainable industrial ecosystem," adding, "We will continue to devote ourselves to developing eco-friendly technologies and processes to contribute to environmental protection and national industrial development."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.