In recent years, the dust removal environmental protection industry has shown a development trend of continuous tightening of policy standards, accelerated technological innovation and iteration, and diversified expansion of market demand under the dual drive of global environmental governance upgrading and industrial technological change. From traditional industrial dust control to precision purification in emerging fields, and from single dust removal function to collaborative control of multiple pollutants, the industry is experiencing all-round changes and breakthroughs.
I. Strengthening Policy Supervision: From Compliance Requirements to Deep of Green Development
The ultra-low emission standards for dust have become a global consensus. Key regions in China, such as the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Yangtze River Delta, have taken the lead in compressing the particulate matter emission concentration limit for the iron and steel and cement industries to below 10mg/m³, and some electronics and pharmaceutical enterprises even require ultra-clean emission at the level of 1mg/m³. This “extreme” standard forces enterprises to eliminate traditional bag dust removal equipment and turn to advanced technologies such as nano-fiber filter materials and high-efficiency electrostatic precipitators. At the same time, the intelligent supervision system has been gradually improved – by deploying IoT monitoring equipment, real-time collection of dust removal equipment operation parameters (such as filter bag pressure difference, emission concentration, dust cleaning frequency, etc.), combined with AI algorithms to achieve early warning of abnormal emissions. In 2023, the effective transmission rate of online monitoring data of key pollution sources nationwide has exceeded 98%, and the supervision efficiency has been significantly improved.
Policy guidance has also shifted from “end-of-pipe treatment” to “source prevention and control”. The Implementation Plan for Carbon Peaking in the Industrial Field issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments clearly states that enterprises using low-dust processes and efficient dust removal technologies will be given green credit support, and the transformation of a single set of equipment can receive a maximum subsidy of 30%. Take a steel enterprise in Shandong as an example. By introducing a closed raw material conveying system and a high-efficiency electro-bag composite dust collector, its dust emissions have decreased by 72% compared with before the transformation, and it has obtained an annual policy subsidy of more than 5 million yuan.
II. Technological Breakthroughs: Material Innovation and Intelligent Integration Reshape Industry Logic
The nanoscale revolution of filter materials is subverting the traditional dust removal model. In addition to high-performance fibers such as PPS and P84, graphene-modified filter materials, with their large specific surface area (2600m²/g) and excellent conductivity, have achieved a filtration efficiency of more than 99.99% in the treatment of high-temperature flue gas in coal-fired power plants, and their service life is extended to twice that of traditional filter bags; Nano-TiO₂ photocatalytic filter materials are used in the treatment of exhaust gas in spraying workshops, and through UV photocatalytic decomposition of organic matter such as formaldehyde, they can simultaneously achieve the functions of dust removal and deodorization. In 2024, the market scale of nano-filter materials in China has exceeded 8 billion yuan, with an annual growth rate of 25%.
The intelligent transformation of dust removal equipment presents the characteristics of “perception-decision-execution” integration. The intelligent pulse dust collector launched by a listed company is equipped with a laser dust sensor and an edge computing module, which can automatically adjust the dust cleaning pressure (range 0.2-0.6MPa) according to the PM2.5 concentration, saving more than 30% energy compared with traditional equipment; Some enterprises even integrate AR technology into operation and maintenance, and can view the simulation animation of filter bag loss by scanning the equipment with a mobile phone APP, with a fault warning accuracy rate of 95%. In addition, the collaborative treatment technology for multiple pollutants has become the mainstream – such as the application of the combined process of “electrostatic precipitator + SCR denitrification + activated carbon adsorption” in waste incineration plants, which can simultaneously achieve ultra-low emissions of dust (<5mg/m³), NOx (<50mg/m³), and dioxins (<0.1ngTEQ/m³), reducing the cost by 20% compared with traditional step-by-step treatment.
III. Market Demand Fission: The Rise of Emerging Fields and the Parallel Upgrading of Existing Stock
Emerging industries have given birth to rigid demand for precision dust removal. In the production of lithium battery anode materials, in order to prevent carbon dust from affecting the conductivity of the battery, a leading enterprise has introduced a three-stage filtration system (primary efficiency + medium efficiency + HEPA), and the dust concentration in the workshop is controlled below 0.1mg/m³, and the equipment investment accounts for 15% of the total production line cost; In the semiconductor wafer manufacturing process, the dust-free workshop needs to use ULPA ultra-high efficiency filters, and the filtration efficiency of particles with a particle size of 0.12μm reaches 99.999%, and the selling price of a single purification equipment exceeds one million yuan. In 2024, the dust removal market scale in the new energy and semiconductor fields increased by 40% year on year, becoming a new engine of the industry.
The demand for stock transformation in traditional industries continues to be released. According to calculations, 60% of the dust removal equipment in China’s iron and steel and cement industries still have a service life of more than 5 years, of which 30% do not meet the latest emission standards. Take the cement industry as an example. From 2023 to 2024, the whole industry invested more than 20 billion yuan in dust removal transformation, and the market penetration rate of electro-bag composite dust collectors and cartridge dust collectors increased from 35% to 58%. In addition, the civil and rural markets have begun to sprout – the sales of household electrostatic dust removal air purifiers in northern smog areas have increased by 35% annually, and the demand for mobile dust removal equipment supporting rural straw incineration stations has increased by 25% year on year, showing the potential of the sinking market.
IV. Industrial Collaboration: Accelerated Cross-Border Integration and Global Layout
Cross-field technology integration has become the key for enterprises to break the game. The cross-border cooperation between environmental protection enterprises and the fields of materials science and automatic control is increasingly close: a listed company has jointly developed a “smart filter bag + blockchain traceability” system with a university, which records the service life of the filter bag (accurate to the hourly level) by implanting an RFID chip, and stores the data on the chain, solving the pain points of “excessive replacement” and “delayed replacement” in traditional operation and maintenance; Another enterprise has applied AI visual inspection technology to filter bag damage early warning, and identified cracks on the surface of the filter bag through industrial cameras, with an accuracy rate of 92%, which is 10 times more efficient than manual inspection.
International competition and cooperation have been deeply developed. The bid winning volume of dust removal projects of domestic enterprises in countries along the “Belt and Road” has increased year by year. In 2024, an environmental protection group won the dust removal EP project of a steel plant in Southeast Asia with a contract amount of 120 million US dollars, and used independently developed high-temperature ceramic filter tube technology to break the monopoly of foreign enterprises in this field; At the same time, a German filter material giant has established a joint venture with a domestic enterprise to localize PTFE fiber production technology, reducing the cost of high-end filter bags by 30% and promoting industry technology iteration.
Conclusion: Seeking Deterministic Growth in Change
The dust removal environmental protection industry is standing at a historical node driven by the “policy-technology-market” triangle: policy red lines force industrial upgrading, technological innovation opens up growth space, and market segmentation gives birth to multiple opportunities. For enterprises, whether it is deepening the “stock replacement” of traditional industrial dust removal or seizing the “incremental blue ocean” of emerging fields, only by taking material innovation as the cornerstone, intelligence as the starting point, and global vision to integrate resources can they gain an advantage in this deep transformation of the environmental protection industry. In the future, with the integration of new technologies such as carbon capture and hydrogen energy with dust removal processes, the industry may usher in a broader development prospect。
Post time: Jul-03-2025