Female scientist wants inventions to be closer to society

With more than 20 years of research on exhaust gas treatment of fuel combustion processes, the technology of manufacturing mixed metal oxide catalysts by female scientist Professor, Dr. Le Minh Thang, Institute of Chemical Engineering (Hanoi University of Science and Technology) and colleagues was granted Patent No. 1-0020257 by the National Office of Intellectual Property in 2019. Since then, Professor, Dr. Thang has continued to "diligently" continue research, with the desire to bring inventions closer to society, serving the community.

Professor, Dr. Le Minh Thang researches the field of catalytic treatment of exhaust gases from fuel combustion processes and organic synthesis, environmental protection including: Exhaust gases from cars, motorbikes, internal combustion engines, exhaust gases from industries using fuel, exhaust gases from thermal power plants, toxic CO gas from fires, coal mine gas, exhaust gases from waste rubber pyrolysis plants, exhaust gases from industrial processes containing many volatile organic compounds, especially aromatic compounds such as exhaust gases from paint processing processes, unsaturated polyester synthesis processes... Emissions from these sources contain polluting gases mainly hydrocarbons, CO... which have adverse effects on the environment and human health.

The research field of exhaust gas treatment catalysts includes four main research areas: three-component catalysts for treating exhaust gas from gasoline engines, catalysts for treating toxic CO gas at normal temperature conditions, catalysts for treating NOx from exhaust gas from thermal power plants and catalysts for treating volatile aromatic compounds from rubber pyrolysis plants and plastic production. Currently, the research on catalysts by scientist Le Minh Thang is being completed to prepare for widespread commercialization, serving the community and protecting the environment.

Professor, Dr. Le Minh Thang instructs students in the laboratory. Photo: Phuong Hoa/VNA

Professor Le Minh Thang added: The advantage of this method of researching and treating exhaust gas is that it can treat many substances in the air at the same time instead of having to treat each object separately. The process by which Professor Thang and his colleagues discovered the catalyst mixture is a long journey based on many basic studies. Although there have been many studies in the world on transition metal oxide mixture catalysts with many applications, the decisive factor in the activity of the catalyst is the ratio of each oxide component. A transition metal usually does not have outstanding activity, so it is necessary to use a number of transition metals in combination with each other to provide many active sites for different stages of the reaction in the exhaust gas treatment process.

In addition, the product's advantage is that it significantly reduces the cost compared to imported products made from expensive precious metals, and has a higher stability because precious metal catalysts are easily sintered in high temperature environments and easily lose their activity after a short time when exposed to chlorine and sulfur in the exhaust gas. The product has now been initially commercialized, some waste rubber pyrolysis factories in Hai Duong have installed this catalyst on the exhaust system at a cost of about 100 million VND/time and after at least 2-3 years, newly installed factories need to replace the catalyst.

Professor, Dr. Le Minh Thang further revealed that, as a member of the Asia-Pacific Catalyst Association (APACS), the group wishes to find a foreign catalyst manufacturing enterprise to transfer technology and create more commercial products. During the search period, the group is still ready to receive requests for direct exhaust gas treatment from domestic factories.

Emission treatment is the process of controlling and preventing polluting components from contacting with the environment. Based on the characteristics and concentrations of different pollutants, appropriate technologies can be selected to thoroughly treat the source of emissions. In the process of industrialization and modernization of the country taking place strongly along with the Fourth Industrial Revolution taking place rapidly around the world, with the goal of protecting the environment, avoiding the negative impacts of climate change that are seriously affecting human health, at the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26), for the first time, Vietnam pledged to develop and implement measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve environmental quality so that Vietnam can achieve net emissions of "0" (Net Zero) by 2050.

Vietnam has thousands of medium and small industrial factories, and exhaust gas treatment plays an important role in many fields with the goal of improving environmental quality. Currently, most factories do not have exhaust gas treatment technology but only use simple water absorption or coal adsorption methods to treat exhaust gas, so the quality is not high, still creating a "burden" for environmental treatment later because these measures still retain pollutants but do not treat them thoroughly. Research by Professor, Dr. Le Minh Thang, Institute of Chemical Engineering (Hanoi University of Science and Technology) has partly solved the "problem" of achieving the highest quality environment.

According to VNA/Tin Tuc Newspaper

Source link