Energy-Saving Practices in Industrial Cleaning Under Dual Carbon Goals

1. A New Role for Industrial Cleaning in the Dual Carbon Era

In September 2020, China announced its "3060 Dual Carbon Goals" at the United Nations — peak carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. Since then, national policies including the "Industrial Sector Carbon Peak Implementation Plan" and the "14th Five-Year Plan for Industrial Green Development" have elevated industrial energy conservation to an unprecedented strategic level.

Industrial cleaning has long been viewed as a secondary maintenance activity, but from a dual-carbon perspective, its role is fundamentally changing. Heat exchanger fouling reduces heat transfer efficiency, boiler carbon deposits increase fuel consumption, and cooling system scaling lowers refrigeration efficiency — all directly affecting industrial energy consumption and carbon emission intensity. According to the China Chemical Energy Conservation Technology Association, additional energy consumption caused by fouled industrial heat exchange equipment typically accounts for 5%-15% of total system energy use, reaching over 25% in severe cases. A single million-ton-per-year chemical plant can waste thousands of tons of standard coal annually due to heat exchanger fouling alone. Scientific and efficient cleaning is becoming a carbon-reduction measure with direct impact, and incorporating cleaning into corporate carbon management has become an industry consensus.

2. Energy Consumption Nodes in Industrial Cleaning

To drive energy savings from the cleaning side, we must first understand the energy consumption points in the cleaning process itself:

2.1 Heating Energy

Chemical cleaning typically requires heating the cleaning solution to specific temperatures (commonly 50°C-80°C) to ensure reaction rates. The heating process for acid and alkaline cleaning consumes large amounts of steam or electricity, accounting for 40%-60% of total cleaning energy consumption. In northern China's winter months, the initial heating of cold equipment and pipelines is particularly energy-intensive.

2.2 Circulation Pumping Energy

Cleaning solution circulation requires continuous high-flow pump operation for 8-48 hours. For large heat exchanger systems and long-distance pipeline cleaning, pumping energy can reach 20%-35% of total energy consumption.

2.3 Waste Liquid Treatment Energy

Cleaning waste liquids contain acids, alkalis, heavy metal ions, and organics that must be neutralized, precipitated, and filtered before compliant discharge. The entire treatment process involves secondary chemical inputs, aeration, and filter pressing — all contributing to the carbon footprint.

2.4 Downtime Losses (Indirect Energy)

Production interruptions caused by traditional shutdown cleaning represent the largest indirect energy loss. A single day of shutdown for a large chemical plant disrupts upstream and downstream steam balance, power dispatch, and material supply, resulting in overall energy waste far exceeding the direct energy consumption of the cleaning operation itself.

3. Cleaning Technology Pathways for Energy Saving and Carbon Reduction

3.1 Low-Temperature High-Efficiency Cleaning

Traditional chemical cleaning relies on heating to ensure reaction rates, but new high-efficiency cleaning agents are changing this paradigm. By compounding Sulfamic Acid, Citric Acid, and other organic acids with high-efficiency penetrants, descaling results comparable to high-temperature cleaning can be achieved at 35°C-45°C. In one chemical plant's shell-and-tube heat exchanger cleaning case, switching to a low-temperature formula reduced steam consumption by 62%, cutting total cleaning energy from approximately 1.8 tons to 0.68 tons of standard coal equivalent per unit.

3.2 Online Non-Stop Cleaning Technology

Online cleaning uses bypass circulation to complete chemical cleaning without shutting down equipment — currently the most energy-efficient cleaning approach. It completely eliminates downtime losses, and since equipment remains in hot operation, the cleaning solution can be preheated using residual system heat, further reducing heating energy. For continuous production industries such as power, chemical, and chemical fiber, the energy benefits of online cleaning often exceed the cleaning service cost itself by several times. A power plant that adopted online chemical cleaning for its condenser avoided approximately 600,000 yuan in outage power generation losses, restored condenser vacuum from -88kPa to -95kPa, reduced turbine heat rate by approximately 1.2%, and saved about 800 tons of standard coal annually.

3.3 High-Pressure Water Jetting Optimization

High-pressure water jetting uses purely physical descaling, requiring no chemical agents and significantly reducing waste liquid treatment burdens. Optimizing pressure-flow matching parameters to reduce pump energy consumption while maintaining cleaning effectiveness is the primary direction for energy savings. For example, reducing pressure from 70MPa to 50MPa for carbonate soft scale while using a rotating nozzle to increase impact area can achieve equivalent cleaning results with approximately 30% lower energy consumption.

4. Waste Liquid Resource Recovery and Emission Reduction

Treatment and discharge of cleaning waste liquids constitute a significant portion of the cleaning carbon footprint. The industry is shifting toward waste liquid resource recovery:

Acid waste recovery: Using membrane separation or evaporation crystallization technology to recover unspent acid and valuable metal salts. One steel enterprise's pickling line waste acid recovery system achieved approximately 75% Sulfamic Acid recovery, reducing new acid purchases by about 120 tons annually while eliminating equivalent alkali neutralizing agent consumption.

Cleaning solution recycling: Extending cleaning solution lifespan from single-use to multi-use through online filtration and chemical replenishment, significantly reducing waste liquid volume and chemical consumption. Online pH and turbidity monitoring ensure that the recycled solution's cleaning capability does not degrade due to dilution.

Waste heat recovery preheating: Incorporating heat exchangers into the cleaning system design to preheat fresh cleaning solution using waste liquid residual heat can reduce heating steam consumption by 15%-25%.

5. Digital Cleaning and Precision Energy Saving

The maturation of IoT and industrial big data technologies is transforming "precision cleaning" from concept to practice. By deploying temperature, pressure, and flow sensors on critical heat exchange equipment combined with online heat transfer coefficient calculation models, operations personnel can monitor fouling conditions in real time, shifting from scheduled to condition-based cleaning — avoiding waste from premature cleaning and efficiency loss from delayed cleaning.

After deploying online monitoring on 12 shell-and-tube heat exchangers, a chemical industrial park adjusted cleaning intervals from a uniform every-6-months to dynamic scheduling based on actual fouling resistance, reducing annual cleaning frequency by approximately 20% while increasing overall heat exchange efficiency by 3.5%, saving about 4,200 tons of steam annually — equivalent to approximately 1,100 tons of CO₂ reduction.

Digital systems can also analyze historical cleaning data to optimize formulas and process parameters — for instance, automatically adjusting cleaning agent concentration based on seasonal water quality variations, reducing heating requirements in warm weather and adjusting circulation time in cold weather. The cumulative energy savings from such refined management are substantial over long-term operation.

6. Industry-Specific Cleaning Energy Savings

7. Summary and Outlook

The Dual Carbon Goals have brought new opportunities to the industrial cleaning industry. Cleaning is no longer just passive maintenance triggered by visible fouling, but an energy-efficiency management tool spanning the entire equipment lifecycle. From low-temperature high-efficiency cleaning agents and online non-stop cleaning technology to waste liquid resource recovery and digital precision cleaning, every technical optimization contributes to industrial carbon reduction targets.

For industrial enterprises, embracing a "cleaning equals energy saving" management philosophy and incorporating equipment cleaning into carbon management systems represents a high-ROI decarbonization pathway. A chemical or power enterprise with billions in annual revenue typically invests only millions per year in equipment cleaning, yet the direct energy savings can reach 5-10 times the cleaning investment. In the dual-carbon era, industrial cleaning is transforming from a cost center into a value creation center.

Looking ahead, with the commercialization of biodegradable cleaning agents, the maturation of AI-assisted cleaning decision systems, and carbon market recognition of equipment energy efficiency management, the energy-saving and carbon-reduction potential of industrial cleaning will continue to grow. DanYang LanXing, as a member of the China Industrial Cleaning Association, remains committed to efficient, low-consumption, and sustainable cleaning technologies, helping every client achieve reliable equipment operation while advancing toward their dual-carbon goals.

Service Coverage: Jiangsu (Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, Zhenjiang, Yangzhou) · Zhejiang (Hangzhou, Ningbo) · Shanghai · Anhui (Hefei) · Shandong · Henan

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