With the rapid economic development and the continuous improvement of people's living standards, functional polymer membrane separation technology and membrane element products have been widely industrialized in various fields and complex application scenarios such as residential water treatment, municipal water supply, wastewater treatment, seawater desalination, ultrapure water preparation, and concentration separation. However, for a long time, the high-end domestic market has been firmly occupied by foreign brands of membrane sheets and membrane elements. As domestic companies' R&D capabilities gradually improve and the domestic and international landscape changes, the market share of domestic companies has steadily increased. Nevertheless, constrained by the limitations of manual and semi-automatic production equipment, both production capacity and product yield have been unstable.
Shanghai Foresight Technology Co., Ltd. began independently developing the first set of industrial membrane element intelligent manufacturing equipment as early as 2018. The industrial membrane element intelligent manufacturing equipment includes two main components: the industrial membrane element intelligent rolling equipment (referred to as “automatic rolling equipment”) and the industrial membrane element intelligent assembly and forming equipment (referred to as “automatic forming equipment”). The automatic rolling equipment performs functions such as welding, folding, and rolling of membrane sheets and other materials; the automatic forming equipment handles the curing, edge trimming, air tightness testing, end cap installation, and fiberglass winding of the rolled membrane elements. All these functions are fully automated, requiring only three people for daily operation and material loading and unloading. This equipment not only saves a significant amount of labor costs but also improves product yield. According to on-site usage statistics, the product yield of this equipment reaches over 99%.
This equipment, developed by Foresight leveraging years of experience in automation equipment development and deep expertise in the functional polymer membrane industry, integrates automation technology, artificial intelligence technology, and rolling process technology. It has the following features:
Good Compatibility: The equipment can load membrane sheets with layers ranging from 5 to 26 and is compatible with both ordinary and adhesive membranes.
Full Automation: The equipment uses six-axis robots to connect various functional modules, eliminating the need for manual intervention in the production process. Only a small number of personnel are required for material loading and unloading.
High Efficiency: The production cycle for 8040 membrane elements (22-page membrane elements) is less than 11 minutes per unit, and for 4040 membrane elements (5-page membrane elements), it is less than 3.8 minutes per unit.
Intelligence: The equipment features the industry's first membrane surface visual defect detection module, enabling automated detection of membrane defects. The detection standards include: 5-10mm obvious color spots on the membrane surface, 0.12mm*0.12mm round holes allowing light through, 0.2-5mm strip-shaped light-transmitting areas, yellow spots, dirt, coating peeling and bubbling, coating loss, and hard creases on the membrane. The equipment also employs a full-line data traceability system to ensure that the production data of each membrane element is traceable, guaranteeing quality.
High Safety Standards: The system incorporates multiple high-safety design measures, such as safety PLCs and safety interlocks, ensuring that the equipment stops immediately when the door is opened. It uses point-specific emergency stop controls, and risk-prone areas are equipped with light curtains or shields to eliminate any personnel risks.
High Reliability: The system adopts a modular design with independent unit control, interfacing through servo grippers and six-axis robots. It features flexible structure, easy disassembly and assembly, and high interfacing precision.
This equipment is a pioneering innovation both domestically and internationally, holding dozens of invention patents and successfully applying for the 2020 Shanghai Strategic Emerging Industry Key Project. It has been applied in several well-known membrane element production enterprises, demonstrating a good exemplary effect. It has significant implications for the development of China's membrane industry, replacing imported filter elements, and breaking the monopoly of high-end membrane manufacturing by foreign giants. With the burgeoning development of material separation applications, the growth potential for this equipment is promising. As a forward-looking pioneer, Foresight will continue to increase its R&D and innovation efforts, ushering in greater development opportunities.
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