CBPM Makes Progress With Sustainable Development and Ecological Environmental Protection

　　China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation (CBPM) has been working on sustainable development for some time. It has developed a range of solutions to increase the use of clean energy and energy efficiency, some of which have been based on advanced technologies. Its work has also addressed the challenges of reducing the adverse impact of cash manufacturing on the environment.

　　1. Energy Replacement and Efficient Utilisation

　　CBPM has increased its use of clean energy as well as focusing on efficient energy use. To achieve the latter, it has put in place energy management and measure systems on its equipment. The combination of good data and the focus on how equipment is operated has led to a number of new energy measurement measures. The clean and renewable energy mix now includes natural gas, solar heating and electricity generated by solar power. The result of these changes is that CBPM has eliminated high-pollution and high-emission energy sources. Coal-free production was achieved in 2016. The total installed capacity of photovoltaic power generation is now approximately 5.5MW. The company will increase its use of renewable energy sources and actively seek to increase the proportion of green electricity it uses, as well as using solar heating to meet the demands in daily life and production. CBPM is looking to improve the efficiency of its energy use across every area of operations. It is implementing LED illumination and energy capture projects. Currently more than 91% of lighting uses energy efficient LED lighting. CBPM has a program that is bringing forward the upgrade of equipment replacing it with more energy efficient advanced technology. For example, energy-intensive steam lithium bromide refrigerators are being replaced with advanced magnetic suspension refrigeration units. CBPM is also implementing energy capture and recycling technologies. It is working on 26 waste heat recovery projects such as air compressors and refrigerating machines. These changes have reduced annual energy consumption equivalent to approximately 3204 tons of standard coal. As of 2022, the company’s energy consumption per unit of production value had dropped by 41.44% compared to 2013, and its aggregate energy consumption has decreased by an equivalent of approximately 40925 tons of standard coal.

　　2. Reduction and Efficient Governance of Pollutants

　　CBPM is focusing on the reduction and efficient governance of the pollutants caused by cash manufacturing. Since 2015, the company has invested more than 600 million Yuan to reduce pollutants caused by its operations so that its impact on the ecological environment is neutral.

　　Wastewater treatment: Banknote paper production uses sizable volumes of water and creates equally large volumes of wastewater. CBPM has invested in advanced wastewater treatment technologies to recover and treat water resources efficiently. 80% of water is now recycled. The total amount of the main pollutants discharged from the wastewater has decreased by 77% in terms of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and 65.5% in terms of ammonia nitrogen. Discharged wastewater has reached the national surface water standard, and the total amount of pollutants has reduced substantially, saving an operating cost of approximately 7.25 million yuan per year while also achieving good environmental and economic benefits. Although the intaglio printing wastewater treatment of the banknote printing is difficult and the cost is high, the company has carried out technical research and innovated in a variety of aspects such as raw material procurement, process disposal and end treatment. As a result, the recycling proportion of all sorts of materials has increased, and end wastewater pollutants has been reduced by 51.3%. Current research is devoted to achieving 100% recycling of the materials to further cut down on the pollutants arising from the banknote printing. Production of coins creates wastewater with a heavy metal content. The company has taken a series of technical upgrading steps and transformational measures in production, wastewater treatment and auxiliary links to reduce the content of nickel in the wastewater to less than 0.1mg/L, greatly decreasing the bad influence of discharged heavy metal on the environment and biology.

　　Exhaust gas treatment: CBPM has eliminated all old coal- and oil-fired boilers and replaced them with natural gas low nitrogen combustion boilers. The emissions of sulfur dioxide, smoke and dust have been reduced by more than 95%, and the total amount of nitrogen oxide emissions has been reduced by more than 80%. CBPM has actively promoted advanced and efficient volatile organic compounds treatment technologies, such as regenerative thermal incineration equipment (RTO), regenerative thermal catalytic oxidation equipment (RCO) and activated carbon adsorption. These measures help to collect and treat volatile organic compounds arising from the production of banknotes and inks in a centralized manner, allowing the efficiency of volatile organic compounds treatment to reach more than 90%, thus realizing the standardization and efficiency of exhaust gas treatment.

　　3. Recovery and Utilization of Resources

　　CBPM adheres to the concept and principle of clean production, reducing the use of water resources and materials in the production and actively improving technologies to save and recycle all sorts of resources.

　　Water resource recovery: Apart from the above-mentioned recycling and utilization of water resources from the banknote paper wastewater treatment, in 2020 CBPM has implemented the reuse of spray water in the production of coins which treated and reused the waste spray water generated by the polishing cleaning equipment. With the activated carbon absorption + reverse osmosis (RO) membrane system, impurities and big particles in water are filtrated by the active carbon filter, and the spray water incurred from the production enters the RO system. This system effectively wipes off the heavy metal ions in the wastewater to make the water resource recycle rate reach over 80%. The recycled water meets the production water standard required for it to be reused in production. The concentrated effluent is discharged to the organic wastewater station for efficient treatment to realize the synergy of resource recovery and reduction of pollutant emissions.

　　Material recycling: CBPM has applied advanced resource recovery technologies to enhance the rate of material recycling in production and used various kinds of technologies and composite processes in the banknote printing to filtrate, separate and recycle the effluent resulted from banknote printing. The comprehensive effluent recovery rate in the system has reached 95%, and the consumption of such materials as pure water, alkali has been reduced. In coin production, pure physical treatment methods like coagulation have been used to condense and separate the chromic acid mist from the electroplate waste gas for reuse in plating production and for less chrome consumption. In banknote paper production, recycling technology with line damaged paper edges has been developed to have realized the recycling of all banknote paper edges, which can save over 80 tons or so of raw pulp each year. In ink production, an “Overall Optimization and Reconstruction of Ink Drum Detergent Recycling Device and Cleaning Area” project has been carried out, and solvent recycling devices have been increased to reduce the amount of hazardous waste and related disposal expenses, achieving remarkable economic benefit. With the above-mentioned resource recycling process and technologies, the opportunities offered by the circular economy to renewable resources will be further expanded.

　　CBPM has made good progress with its work on sustainable development and ecological environmental protection and has achieved encouraging results. In the future, the company will continue to adhere to the concept of sustainable development and assume the responsibility of environmental protection so as to achieve the all-win harmony between the development of enterprises and the protection of natural environment.