The heat treatment industry is a major energy consumer, and while consuming energy, factory emissions are also eroding our beautiful home—the Earth, causing serious environmental pollution, air pollution, noise pollution, and so on, damaging the healthy lives of residents near heat treatment plants, and also posing a great threat to the living environment of future generations.
In view of the current situation, energy conservation, consumption reduction, and emission reduction are urgent issues that the heat treatment industry and all major energy consumers must solve. A reporter from China Metalworking Online interviewed Professor Wen Xinlin, Secretary-General of the Baoding Heat Treatment Society and Association, on the current status of energy conservation and emission reduction in the heat treatment industry, the existing problems, and how to solve these problems, etc.

　　China Metalworking Online reporter (hereinafter referred to as the reporter): At present, China’s heat treatment industry has already begun to consciously carry out energy conservation and emission reduction. Please briefly talk about the current status of energy conservation and emission reduction in China’s heat treatment industry.

　　Wen Xinlin: In 2006 and 2007, the United States issued the strategic roadmap for the U.S. heat treatment industry, one point of which was to realize zero pollution in the heat treatment industry after several years. This shows that the U.S. heat treatment industry association and the government attach great importance to energy conservation and emission reduction in heat treatment. In the past two or three years, heat treatment societies, heat treatment industry associations, and professional committees across China, as well as those in various provinces and cities, have also successively begun to pay attention to heat treatment pollution issues and have discussed them many times.

　　From 1978 until five years ago, China’s heat treatment industry basically made no progress and even regressed. In the past five years, the National Development and Reform Commission and the China Machinery Industry Federation have begun to attach importance to the heat treatment industry, and advanced heat treatment equipment has become available, such as vacuum furnaces, mesh belt furnaces, and so on, as well as various advanced quenching media, and exploratory operation has begun in large laboratories and factories. However, because quite a number of heat treatment workers are conservative and outdated in their thinking, they do not dare to boldly use these so-called water-based quenching media. Every time this is mentioned, their first reaction is that alloy steel should be oil-quenched and carbon steel should be water-quenched. They accept new things very slowly.

　　Now every city has small machinery manufacturing factories, and in the past each small factory had a heat treatment workshop. Since the reform and opening up, most of these heat treatment workshops have already been dissolved. The heat treatment workshops of state-owned enterprises have successively closed down, and scientific workers with ideals and foresight have begun to engage in heat treatment engineering on their own. Even so, because individual strength is limited, some of their equipment is newly purchased while some is old equipment repaired for reuse. Such equipment is bound to result in parts quality that is generally not particularly precise, environmentally friendly, or clean, and wastes a large amount of electricity, coal, and oil.

　　Now there are very few heat treatment workshops retained by state-owned enterprises in each city. Most are self-employed businesses and township enterprises, all of a small-scale and makeshift nature, which is very unfavorable to heat treatment quality. A few joint-venture enterprises, especially showcase projects supported and fostered by the government, have made large investments in heat treatment in recent years. It can now be said that the current heat treatment situation falls into three categories: first, state-owned enterprises have retained some heat treatment workshops, but the equipment is outdated and the concepts are outdated; second, although self-employed businesses may have advanced ideas, due to limited funds they cannot afford advanced equipment; third, joint ventures and government-supported showcase enterprises may invest a certain amount of funds in heat treatment, and the quality of heat treatment will be greatly improved.

　　Reporter: What do you think are the main problems currently existing in energy conservation and emission reduction in China’s heat treatment industry? How should these problems be solved?

　　Wen Xinlin: At present, the main problems existing in the heat treatment industry are still the outdated equipment of various small heat treatment plants, the outdated thinking of enterprise managers, and the lack of sufficient funds for enterprises to replace equipment with newly developed advanced equipment.

　　To solve these problems, the most fundamental thing is to scrap all those backward heat treatment equipment with serious pollution and high energy consumption, and force heat treatment plants to replace them with new equipment, environmentally friendly equipment, energy-saving equipment, and clean equipment; concepts must also be updated, and new quenching media should be used, with water, air, oil, and water-soluble media used alternately as appropriate, using whatever should be used. In this way, our energy conservation and emission reduction can be improved.

　　Recently, Premier Wen Jiabao said that the country’s energy conservation and emission reduction have not met the standards, and the government has promised to meet the standards in the next few years, which should probably also include heat treatment. It is necessary to forcibly eliminate those backward furnaces and replace them with new equipment. Otherwise, those furnaces burn 24 hours a day, and the more they burn, the greater the waste, and they will also inevitably cause great pollution.

　　Reporter: In view of the current status and existing problems of China’s heat treatment industry, what do you think enterprises should do to achieve energy conservation and emission reduction?

　　Wen Xinlin: As just mentioned, the main problems existing in the heat treatment industry are clear. In response to these problems, what enterprises most need to do now is eliminate those backward equipment, introduce new energy-saving and environmentally friendly equipment, organize employees to learn advanced technologies, cultivate high-tech talent, and strengthen enterprise management, so that a virtuous cycle can continue.

　　Reporter: The problems currently existing in China’s heat treatment industry are still very serious. To achieve energy conservation and emission reduction and reduce environmental pollution, a great deal of work and effort is still needed in all aspects. What effective measures will industry associations and academic societies take to help heat treatment enterprises carry out energy conservation and emission reduction?

　　Wen Xinlin: Industry associations and academic societies do not have government support. They have no salaries and no financial sources, and some of the activities they organize are also taken from the people and used for the people. As early as around 1970, the mechanical engineering societies of various cities still provided some activity funds to the heat treatment branches, but since the reform and opening up, these funds have disappeared. Now the heat treatment associations and societies in every city have no administrative management above them, which means that when the national heat treatment industry association or society holds a meeting, there is no economic or administrative binding force. Enterprises may or may not listen to the instructions of the association or society. If they are willing, they attend the meeting; if not, they may not even allow people through the factory gate. Therefore, relying solely on the strength of associations or societies cannot achieve energy conservation and emission reduction in the heat treatment industry. The government and the Development and Reform Commission must take the lead, invest a certain amount of funds, and add administrative guidance and control, with heat treatment industry associations and societies assisting in the implementation.

　　If there is governmental administrative and economic support, associations and societies will take the following measures to promote enterprises in achieving energy conservation and emission reduction:

　　1. Technical personnel and experts from associations and societies should go to factories to inspect certain indicators. If the indicators are met, the factory is permitted to start operations; if not, production must be suspended for rectification. Just like the environmental protection bureau, if the water discharged from a factory is measured by them and the acidity or pollutants do not meet standards, they will forcibly shut it down, stop production, and require the purchase of new equipment until the discharged wastewater meets the standards. For the transformation of the heat treatment industry, it is necessary to learn from environmental protection departments, and the government must issue mandatory orders; otherwise, it cannot be controlled.

　　2. Associations and societies should organize some training courses to introduce the benefits of new products and the benefits of new quenching media. Or they can publish some popular science reading materials to compare new equipment and new processes with old equipment and old processes, explain where the new equipment and processes are better, how much energy can be saved within how many years, and how much capital can be saved, so that they understand that what is being advocated now is responsible behavior toward future generations.

　　3. Strengthen the formulation of assessment standards for energy consumption in heat treatment production, and establish standardized energy consumption standards and acceptance standards for heat treatment equipment. This will give everyone a sufficient theoretical basis in actual production.