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There is a saying in China’s environmental protection industry: “When environmental policies change, yesterday’s investment can become tomorrow’s burden.”
Many companies have experienced the same frustrating cycle. They spend tens of millions of yuan building a flue gas desulfurization system, finally meet the emission standards, and breathe a sigh of relief—only to find that a new standard has been introduced and the existing system is no longer sufficient.
So they retrofit the system, invest more money, and wait for the next round of regulatory changes.
Environmental compliance can easily become a never-ending race against tightening standards. The money keeps going out, while the uncertainty keeps growing.
This regulatory anxiety is particularly evident with conventional calcium-based desulfurization. The reason is simple: calcium-based FGD sits at the intersection of three major regulatory trends—solid-waste control, carbon-emission management, and ammonia-emission control.
The First Concern: Where Will All the Gypsum Go?
For every ton of sulfur dioxide absorbed through calcium-based desulfurization, approximately 2.7 tons of desulfurization gypsum are generated.
Following the implementation of stricter solid-waste regulations, desulfurization gypsum has increasingly become subject to tighter compliance and disposal requirements. Disposal costs that once amounted to several dozen yuan per ton can rise to more than RMB 100 per ton in some locations. Public tender information indicates that in 2026, disposal prices for desulfurization gypsum in different regions generally range from approximately RMB 70 to RMB 176 per ton.
But disposal cost is not the only concern.
On August 15, 2026, the Ecological and Environmental Code officially came into effect. Around the same period, the 15th Five-Year Plan for Circular Economy Development and the 15th Five-Year Plan for Solid Waste Pollution Prevention and Control were introduced. Digitalized solid-waste supervision is moving toward comprehensive traceability, while illegal dumping and disposal are becoming increasingly important compliance indicators.
In other words, every stage of the gypsum lifecycle—from generation and transportation to utilization or final disposal—is becoming more visible to regulators.
The question is no longer simply, “Can we dispose of gypsum today?”
It is also:
What about tomorrow?
And what will it cost?
The regulatory direction is increasingly clear: solid-waste management is becoming stricter, while disposal requirements and associated costs may continue to increase. Every investment a company makes in gypsum disposal therefore carries a degree of regulatory uncertainty.
The Second Concern: How High Will Carbon Costs Go?
Calcium-based desulfurization has another inherent issue.
For every ton of sulfur dioxide absorbed, approximately 0.75 tons of carbon dioxide are released as a result of the chemical reaction. This is fundamentally related to the reaction mechanism and cannot simply be eliminated through operational optimization.
China's national carbon emissions trading market has already expanded beyond the power sector to cover major high-emission industries, including steel, cement, and aluminum smelting. The market currently covers a substantial proportion of China's total emissions, with further expansion planned during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.
Carbon prices are also becoming an increasingly important factor in corporate environmental costs. In August 2026, the comprehensive closing price of China's carbon market reached RMB 97.90 per ton, with the monthly high reaching RMB 100 per ton.
Carbon-market researchers at Tsinghua University have suggested that a carbon price around RMB 80 per ton can be considered reasonable under current conditions, while future prices may rise as emission-reduction requirements become more stringent.
The key point is not the exact price today.
It is the uncertainty over where the carbon-price ceiling will eventually be.
Every additional ton of CO₂ inherently generated by a desulfurization process can become a growing long-term compliance cost.
The Third Concern: Will Ammonia Slip Regulations Become Stricter?
In March 2026, China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment released the draft Emission Standard of Air Pollutants for Thermal Power Plants and Boilers. For the first time, ammonia slip was proposed as a mandatory emission-control indicator, with a proposed limit of 8 mg/m³.
This represents an important regulatory shift: ammonia slip is moving from an operational control issue toward a formal emission-compliance requirement, with direct implications for environmental permits and emissions assessments.
Companies using calcium-based desulfurization frequently operate an SCR denitrification system at the same facility.
An SCR system can experience excessive ammonia injection during operation, creating a risk of elevated ammonia slip. As ammonia emissions receive increasing regulatory attention, this issue is becoming harder to treat as merely an internal process-control parameter.
The cement industry is also facing tighter ammonia-emission requirements, with kiln-tail ammonia emissions being tightened to 8 mg/m³ from April 1, 2026.
The direction is clear: the scope of environmental regulation is expanding while emission limits are becoming increasingly stringent.
Today it may be thermal power.
Tomorrow it may be cement.
And in the future, more industries may face similar requirements.
Calcium-to-Ammonia Desulfurization: A More Policy-Resilient FGD Route
Behind these three concerns lies a fundamental question:
How much of a company's future compliance risk is built into its desulfurization technology itself?
With conventional calcium-based desulfurization, compliance depends partly on several external variables: solid-waste disposal requirements, carbon costs, and the future scope of ammonia-emission regulation.
Each of these variables can change.
Calcium-to-ammonia desulfurization takes a fundamentally different approach.
Instead of using calcium-based absorbents, the process uses ammonia water as the absorbent and converts sulfur dioxide into ammonium sulfate fertilizer.
The result is a process designed around resource recovery rather than solid-waste generation.
The entire process generates no solid desulfurization waste, no wastewater, and no additional CO₂ emissions from the desulfurization reaction.
Stricter gypsum disposal regulations?
No gypsum is generated.
Higher carbon costs?
No additional process CO₂ emissions from the desulfurization reaction.
Broader ammonia-slip regulations?
An ammonia recovery rate of no less than 99% is designed into the process.
This is not about betting that environmental regulations will stop becoming stricter.
It is about choosing a technology whose fundamental process characteristics are better aligned with the direction of increasingly stringent environmental regulation.
For companies planning long-term environmental investments, calcium-to-ammonia desulfurization can therefore be viewed as a way of purchasing greater compliance certainty for the next decade.
Mingsheng Environmental Protection: Turning Compliance Certainty into Engineering Capability
Technology is what ultimately turns regulatory resilience into practical engineering performance.
Mingsheng Environmental Protection has focused on ammonia-based flue gas desulfurization for nearly two decades. The company has developed from a specialized ammonia desulfurization technology provider into an integrated environmental protection enterprise covering R&D and engineering design, equipment manufacturing, EPC services, and intelligent operation and maintenance.
Its calcium-to-ammonia desulfurization technology achieves a sulfur dioxide removal efficiency of more than 99.5% across the process, with an ammonia recovery rate of no less than 99% and outlet particulate emissions controlled below 5 mg/m³.
Compared with conventional calcium-based processes, system pressure loss can be reduced significantly, resulting in more than 50% electricity savings, while circulating-pump power consumption can be reduced by nearly 70%.
Another important advantage is retrofit flexibility.
The calcium-to-ammonia process can make maximum use of existing desulfurization towers and other equipment, helping control capital expenditure. Under typical project conditions, the investment payback period is generally around two to three years.
Mingsheng Environmental Protection has also been recognized as a national-level Specialized, Sophisticated, Unique and Innovative “Little Giant” enterprise in China.
Its cascade separation and purification ammonia-based desulfurization and dust-removal integrated technology has undergone technical appraisal by academicians and experts and has already been applied in hundreds of projects across industries including chemical processing, power generation, steel, carbon materials, papermaking, and coking.
The Real Value Is Not Just Compliance
Environmental regulations will continue to evolve.
Emission limits may become stricter. Solid-waste management may become more comprehensive. Carbon costs may change. New pollutants may become regulated.
Companies cannot control how environmental policies evolve.
But they can control the technology they choose today.
Calcium-to-ammonia desulfurization is not simply another power plant desulfurization option. Its value lies in reducing the number of external variables that can turn today's compliance investment into tomorrow's retrofit project.
The goal is not to keep chasing every new environmental standard.
The goal is to build a system that is designed to remain within the compliance envelope as standards continue to evolve.
That is what calcium-to-ammonia desulfurization can offer: not just compliance today, but greater confidence that the system can continue to meet tomorrow's environmental requirements.