Toward cleaner production of hot dip galvanizing industry in China

China has now the largest annual outputs of galvanized steel and the most amount of galvanizing plants in the world. However, with obsolete technology, the hot dip galvanizing industry has been proved as one of the industries, which consume large amounts of raw materials and energy, produce numerous pollutants and causes serious contamination in China. Cleaner Production in the hot dip galvanizing industry is now the only way to achieve the sustainable development of hot dip galvanizing industry. The implementation of the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC) project: The Transfer of Technology and Promotion of demand: Batch hot dip galvanizing in China launched by International Zinc Association (IZA) is introduced in this paper, The Best Available Technologies of operation, energy and environmental management in the world are also introduced. With the implementation of the project, an assessment system of Cleaner Production and a training system have been developed and implementation of technical updating to the demonstration plant shows that the reduction of zinc loss, and water and fuel cost savings can be achieved. It is believed that the methodology of the project can be applied throughout China as the galvanizers see the cost benefits. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.