On June 19, China Building Material Federation together with three major industrial associations (China Building & Sanitary Ceramics Association, China Cement Association, and China Architectural and Industrial Glass Association) announced the goal, list and measures for energy conservation and emission reduction in the building and sanitary ceramics industry in 2018 (hereinafter referred to as the "Goal"). The Goal requires that the proportion of production lines that meet the standards should be increased by 25% annually from 2018. In other words, China's ceramic production lines should all meet the energy conservation and emission reduction standards by 2020.

In order to meet the overall energy conservation and emission reduction standards based on the national "13th Five-year Plan" for energy conservation and emission reduction, the building and sanitary ceramics industry will reach the goal by: reducing the comprehensive energy consumption of 10,000 yuan output value by 15%; reducing the total amount of exhaust gas and dust emissions by 20%; reducing the amount of sulfur dioxide emissions by 40%; reducing the total amount of nitrogen oxides emissions by 10%; reducing the total amount of carbon dioxide emissions by 10%; and eliminating the outdated production capacity by 30%. 

The Goal proposes that one-third of the production lines in the building and sanitary ceramics industry should reach the world's advanced level at the end of the 13th Five-year Plan, and specific targets have been drawn for energy consumption and pollutant emission in three areas. See Table 1-3.

Twenty Enterprises take the Lead in Achieving the Standards

The Goal also proposes that this year it will mainly focus on implementing the strategy of “supporting, transforming and eliminating a group of enterprises respectively” to revitalize existing enterprises and cultivate leading enterprises. Encouraging the small and medium-sized enterprises to transform and explore differentiated ways of development so as to develop a numbers of enterprises featuring with "profession, refinement, specialty, excellency". Eliminating enterprises that make low-quality products with high raw material and energy consumption and fail to meet the standards of environment improvement. 

In addition, the Goal has released a list of 20 enterprises that are the first to meet the standards of energy conservation and emission reduction in 2018. Among them, there are 12 ceramic enterprises, 7 sanitary ware enterprises and 1 ceramic machinery enterprise.See Table 4.

Promotion of 12 Technologies for Clean Energy and Emission Reduction

There are 12 technologies for energy conservation and emission reduction promoted in the Goal:

1. Development and production of ceramic thin slab, extruded ceramic panel, Foaming ceramic panel, etc.

2. Dry-grinding technology of ceramic tiles

3. Ceramic continuous ball milling technology

4. High-efficient technology of clean coal gasification

5. Low emission technology of spray drying

6. Centralized milling technology of building ceramics

7. Multi-layer roller dryer of building ceramic

8. Lightweight water-saving sanitary ceramics (pedestal pan, urinal, squatting pan) 

9. Matching technology of production and application of thin building ceramic tile (panel)

10. Low-pressure rapid drainage forming technology and high-pressure forming technology of sanitary ceramics

11. NC machining technology, robot application technology, intelligent three-dimensional warehousing technology

12. Technologies and equipments for efficient dust collection, desulfurization and defluorination, and synergistic treatment of various pollutants

Starting from this year, several projects of energy conservation and emission reduction have been incorporated into the renovation plan. The projects include promoting centralized milling in various production areas across the country, studying technologies and equipments to reduce nitrogen oxides emissions, setting up demonstration plants that have met environmental standards, promoting standard models of environmental protection facilities, promoting the program of industrial manufacturing 2025, and promoting industrial applications where machines replace manual techniques.