In recent years, fiber ball filter media has rapidly emerged in the field of water treatment due to its high-efficiency filtration performance, corrosion resistance and economy, becoming the core material for industrial wastewater treatment, oilfield reinjection water purification and municipal water supply. With the tightening of environmental protection policies and technological iterations, the fiber ball filter media market will usher in a new round of growth in 2025. Many companies have launched innovative products and application solutions to promote the industry to develop in the direction of high precision and intelligence.

• Technology upgrade: modified fiber balls become the mainstream in the market

Traditional fiber ball filter materials are made of polyester, polypropylene and other fiber filaments, while modified fiber balls have significantly improved their adsorption capacity and adaptability through surface functionalization treatment (such as hydrophilic and oleophobic, introduction of specific functional groups).For example, the modified fiber ball filter material launched by Lvyuan Water Treatment Company uses highly aldehyded vinylon. In the treatment of oily wastewater, the oil content of filtered water can be reduced to ≤5mg/L, and the suspended solids ≤2mg/L. It also has excellent backwash regeneration performance and a service life of more than 2 years. In addition, its unique "loose on top and tight on bottom" pore structure design makes the filtration accuracy reach the level of microfiltration membrane (≤1 micron), and it performs outstandingly in the treatment of low-permeability oilfield reinjection water.

• Application scenarios: covering multiple fields and helping green transformation

1. Oilfield and petrochemical industry: Fiber ball filter media plays a core role in the treatment of oily wastewater. Taking a Qinghai metallurgical enterprise as an example, after using modified fiber balls, the removal rate of suspended solids exceeded 95%, the removal rate of heavy metal ions exceeded 90%, and the operating cost was reduced by 30%.

2. Industrial wastewater reuse: Applied to steel, electricity, chemical and other industries, through the "coagulation + fiber ball filtration + reverse osmosis" process, wastewater recycling is achieved.

3. Municipal and domestic water: In projects such as the Jiuxianqiao Sewage Treatment Plant in Beijing, fiber ball filter media are used in deep treatment units to directly filter the effluent from the secondary sedimentation tank, significantly improving water quality.

• Innovation breakthrough: Full chain optimization from materials to processes

1. Material innovation: Comet fiber ball filter media combines the fiber interception performance and the backwashing advantages of particle filter media to achieve adaptive filtration in the Chengdu Shahe Sewage Treatment Plant with a filtration rate of 30m/h.

2. Process integration: The fiber ball precision filter is combined with the reverse osmosis membrane, becoming the mainstream pretreatment solution for membrane water treatment, and the initial investment cost is 40% lower than that of traditional technologies.

3. Environmental attributes: Some companies use biodegradable fiber filaments to reduce secondary pollution,

• Future Outlook: Intelligentization and Greening Go Hand in Hand

Industry experts point out that fiber ball filter materials will develop in two major directions in the future:

1. Intelligent management: Real-time monitoring of the filter layer status through Internet of Things technology to achieve backwashing automation and energy consumption optimization.

2. Functional refinement: Targeted adsorption fiber balls are developed for emerging pollutants such as heavy metals and microplastics, such as sulfur/nitrogen group modified products.

Fiber ball filter media is becoming a "jack of all trades" in the field of water treatment due to its technical flexibility and environmental benefits. With the tightening of the new national standard for industrial wastewater discharge in 2025, its market size is expected to exceed 10 billion yuan. Enterprises need to continue to innovate to cope with challenges such as high-salt wastewater and extremely low-concentration pollutants, and contribute Chinese solutions to global water environment governance.