Jiuwu Hi-Tech's 28 Years

Breaking the deadlock: Localization of ceramic membranes, ending the era of foreign monopoly.

In the 1990s, the Chinese ceramic membrane market was completely controlled by European and American brands. The price of an imported ceramic membrane, reaching tens of thousands of yuan, became an unbearable burden for the industry. The high procurement costs were just the tip of the iceberg. Foreign brands further strangled the domestic manufacturing industry through technological blockades and service monopolies: core membrane material formulas and pore size design parameters were kept strictly confidential, leaving domestic companies with no choice but to make purchases; equipment maintenance required waiting for foreign engineers to come to the site, with service fees often reaching tens of thousands of yuan per visit and response times frequently exceeding one month.

In critical processes such as aseptic filtration in food and pharmaceuticals and purification and separation in the chemical industry, a single equipment shutdown can result in losses of millions of yuan. "A single membrane" has become a "shackle" restricting the upgrading of domestic industries and has also kept many manufacturing industries in a passive position in international competition.

Faced with difficulties, Academician Xu Nanping's team undertook the national "Ninth Five-Year Plan" science and technology research project, taking the lead in the localization of ceramic membranes. Without readily available technical drawings for reference or mature process paths to follow, the research team tackled the "bottleneck" problems one by one, from adjusting the ceramic powder formula and optimizing the membrane pore structure to improving the molding process and integrating and testing the equipment. They developed the first domestically produced ceramic membrane, filling the domestic gap and opening the way for the domestic substitution of imported products.

Breaking Through: Independent R&D Forges a "Key National Technology"

Jiuwu's technological breakthroughs have never stopped. Jiuwu Hi-Tech always prioritizes customers and drives product iteration and upgrades through continuous innovation: its tubular ceramic membranes achieve full coverage of filtration precision from microfiltration to ultrafiltration, with rich configurations serving fields such as bio-fermentation and plant extraction; high-packing density membranes increase the membrane area per unit volume by 3 times, enabling its widespread application in large-scale fields such as mine water, municipal drinking water, and reclaimed water reuse; and its high-precision silicon carbide ceramic membranes can withstand extreme conditions such as temperatures from -20℃ to 800℃, pH values of 0-14, and even hydrofluoric acid environments, gradually building a complete industrial chain from membrane material research and development and core component production to systematic solution output.

Counter-Stranglehold Tech

Technological Innovation: "Adsorption + Membrane" Process Builds a Core Moat

Addressing industry pain points, Jiuwu Hi-Tech has taken a different approach, innovating a "direct lithium extraction from raw brine" process and building a core technology system of "adsorption + membrane method". On the materials side, Jiuwu has developed the fourth-generation aluminum-based and titanium-based adsorbents, with adsorption capacity 30%-50% higher than third-generation products, far exceeding the industry average of 5%-8%. On the process side, it has abandoned the complex process of "concentration first, then lithium extraction" in traditional processes, and directly adsorbs and separates raw brine from salt lakes, increasing the lithium recovery rate to over 90%, achieving a technological breakthrough of "one-step lithium extraction".

More importantly, this technology system achieves comprehensive resource utilization: the tail brine after lithium extraction can be directly used to produce potash fertilizer, magnesium salts, and other products, with no wastewater discharge, fully meeting low-carbon and environmental protection requirements. This independently developed technology not only solves the global challenge of developing high magnesium-to-lithium ratio salt lakes, but also forms an absolute advantage in cost control—reducing costs by 30%-40% compared to foreign technologies and reducing energy consumption by more than 50% compared to traditional domestic processes, providing a feasible path for the large-scale and green development of lithium extraction from salt lakes.

Proof of Overtaking: From Doestic Benchmark to Global Export

Jiuwu's technological strength has been fully demonstrated through project implementation. Jiuwu Hi-Tech assisted Minmetals Salt Lake Co., Ltd. in building the world's first 10,000-ton-scale all-membrane lithium extraction project from old brine, achieving a product purity of 99.9% and meeting international advanced standards in all indicators. Recently, Jiuwu Hi-Tech again assisted Minmetals Salt Lake in successfully applying the "adsorption + membrane" method to the direct lithium extraction from Yiliping Salt Lake brine, establishing the world's first industrial-scale benchmark project for direct lithium extraction from raw brine using the adsorption method. Jiuwu also won the bid for the adsorbent section of Salt Lake Industry Co., Ltd.'s 40,000-ton lithium salt integrated project, the largest in China, further consolidating its leading position in the domestic market.

This thorough market analysis ultimately yielded a resounding victory. Jiuwu Hi-Tech's "adsorption + membrane" technology has driven the efficient development of China's salt lake lithium resources, providing crucial support for the lithium resource security of the new energy vehicle industry chain. This technology won the "China Membrane Industry Patent Gold Award" and has been included in the National Salt Lake Lithium Extraction Technology Export Restriction Catalogue. Currently, over half of the domestic salt lake lithium extraction market uses Jiuwu Hi-Tech's adsorbents. From being "strangled" to "counter-strangle," this comeback is truly remarkable.

Code to Success

Code to Success: The core Drive Behind the Two Leaps

Innovation is the core gene that has enabled Jiuwu Hi-Tech to navigate economic cycles and achieve two technological leaps. In the past three years, its R&D expenditure as a percentage of revenue has increased year by year: 7.5% in 2022, 8% in 2023, and exceeding 10% in 2024, far exceeding the industry average of 3%-5%, providing ample resources for technological research and development. This strong R&D investment has yielded fruitful results: Jiuwu has won five national-level science and technology awards, including the National Technological Invention Award and the National Science and Technology Progress Award; it holds over 200 authorized patents (including over 80 invention patents); and it has undertaken more than 20 national and provincial-level research projects, including the National 863 Program and the National Key R&D Program.

Meanwhile, Jiuwu has built an innovation ecosystem of "enterprise-led, industry-university-research collaboration". Co-led with Nanjing Tech University, it jointly founded Jiangsu Province's third and Nanjing City's first " Membrane Materials Innovation Cener." It incubates 3-5 core technologies every year, forming a closed-loop innovation system of "basic research - technology development - industrial application". Relying on the national-level postdoctoral research station platform, it promotes the integration of industry, academia and research, accelerates the application and transformation of scientific and technological achievements, and provides a source of vitality for the company's continuous breakthroughs.

Team Commitment: A Can-Do Spirit Empowers Technology

Behind the breakthroughs in key technologies lies a hardcore team capable of fighting tough battles and winning victories. At the pilot site of the Bangor Co Salt Lake in Tibet, in the extreme cold of -20°C, team members were stationed in containers, collecting raw brine data during the day and analyzing experimental results at night, continuously sticking to the front line and laying a solid foundation for the industrialization of the technology. During the critical phase of the Minmetals Salt Lake Yiliping project, Jiuwu Hi-Tech formed a project "assault team" that worked an average of 16 hours a day, setting a new industry benchmark for adsorbent filling efficiency and demonstrating "Jiuwu speed" and "Jiuwu responsibility".

This spirit of "rooting in the front line, overcoming difficulties, and pursuing excellence" runs through every key stage of Jiuwu's development. It has become the core spirit that supports Jiuwu Hi-Tech from the localization of ceramic membranes to the technological overtaking of lithium extraction from salt lakes. It is this core commitment that has enabled Jiuwu to continuously break through limits in one technological breakthrough after another.

Intelligent Manufacturing: Iterative Upgrade of Production Model

To meet the demands of technological innovation and market expansion, Jiuwu Hi-Tech took the lead in promoting the iterative upgrade of its production model. In 2021, Jiuwu's intelligent manufacturing workshop for ceramic membranes officially went into operation. This workshop adopts automated production lines, intelligent warehousing systems, and digital twin technology, realizing intelligent control of the entire process from raw material processing and membrane preparation to equipment assembly.

As a national-level green factory, this intelligent manufacturing workshop has shortened the project development cycle by 40% and ensured large-scale mass production capacity through modular and automated production. It has also achieved energy conservation and consumption reduction in the production process—the energy consumption per unit product is reduced by 25% compared with the traditional production mode, and the water resource reuse rate reaches 90%. While improving production efficiency, it has practiced the concept of green development and set a model for intelligent manufacturing in the industry.

Future Vision: Pioneering a New Path for Industry Security Through Technological Innovation

Standing at a new starting point for development, Jiuwu Hi-Tech will continue to uphold its original aspiration of "technological independence" and drive high-quality development through innovation. In terms of technological advancement, it will continuously iterate on membrane materials and lithium extraction technologies, expand the application of novel adsorbents such as manganese-based and zirconium-based adsorbents, and constantly consolidate its technological barriers. Strategically, it will always take national industrial security as its responsibility, breaking through more "bottleneck" barriers through technological innovation, propelling my country's separation membrane industry and salt lake lithium extraction industry to a globally leading level, and safeguarding the high-quality development of China's manufacturing industry.

From breaking the foreign monopoly through domestic substitution of ceramic membranes to achieving a leading edge in lithium extraction technology from salt lakes, Jiuwu Hi-Tech has proven over 28 years that only by adhering to technological independence and daring to innovate and break through can national enterprises gain the initiative in global competition. This path of technological breakthrough from "breaking the monopoly" to "overcoming the bottleneck" is not only Jiuwu Hi-Tech's epic growth story but also a vivid portrayal of the rise of China's high-end manufacturing, providing valuable lessons for more national enterprises to implement innovation-driven development strategies and shoulder the responsibility of industrial upgrading.