Only with his passion for research, the “barefoot engineer” Trinh Dinh Nang invented machines that shocked domestic and foreign scientists: Medical waste treatment furnace, curcumin extraction machine from turmeric… Most recently, he made the scientific community even more admired when he announced the successful production of carbon nano C70 from… rice husks, coconut shells.
Get a salary of 3,000 USD because running out of money for research
Trinh Dinh Nang – a true “barefoot” scientist in Bac Kan is no longer strange in the Vietnamese scientific community, because after decades of self-study and research, he gave birth to A series of modern, exclusive machines.
The special thing about this person is his time on research, he is always on the move. At least, to meet him, we missed nearly a dozen appointments, from his private home and mechanical workshop in Bac Kan City to the company branch in Hanoi. Unlike our image of a luxurious and dignified Director, Mr. Trinh Dinh Nang (born 1957, Nong Thuong commune, Bac Kan city) in front of him is still as honest as a simple farmer. But when talking about science, this nearly 70-year-old man’s eyes light up with excitement.
Mr. Nang said: “In the past, my family was very poor, so I only finished the 6th grade and asked to quit school to stay home and help my mother because my father worked far away. Some time later, when the house was temporarily stable, I applied to work as a worker at Thai Nguyen Iron and Steel Factory. After a while, I quit my job. With my passion and interest in self-research, I created a side press machine used to repair motorbikes. This is the first invention that I “brought to market” with a selling price that is only half that of other devices. Thanks to that, in just a few years I had a decent amount of capital.”
To facilitate research, he opened his own laboratory, bought modern furniture and equipment, and hired three more people to assist. During this time, he focused mainly on separating metal ores to get gold and silver using a new technology. This was also the most difficult time for him since he started researching and manufacturing machines. When the gold separation furnace was put into operation for more than a year, its capital was exhausted. Research had to be shelved.
But in misfortune there is luck, from the failure of researching gold separation technology, the “farmer engineer” Trinh Dinh Nang became famous, receiving attention from many domestic and international scientists and manufacturers. will come. He was invited by a Korean machine manufacturing company to Hanoi as a technical expert with many incentives. They rented a house for him to live in, provided a car for transportation, and received a monthly salary of 2,000 – 3,000 USD. And this high salary is a favorable condition for Mr. Nang to continue nurturing his passion for scientific research.
Shocking inventions
In 2012, Mr. Trinh Dinh Nang surprised the domestic scientific community with the announcement of an exclusive invention: “Hazardous medical waste incinerator”. This product is considered to have the highest quality of environmental treatment and has been patented by the Department of Intellectual Property, Ministry of Science and Technology.
“The new technology of the furnace is continuous combustion, spitting fire into the burning object, unlike other furnaces that spray oil. At the center of the furnace, the temperature can reach 1,800 degrees Celsius. Burning time is also very fast. The furnace’s lifespan is highly durable and there are no technical problems or clogged oil lines,” Mr. Nang added.
When this product was launched for testing, many domestic and foreign scientists were impressed by his creative idea. And immediately there were many orders to buy back his invention at high prices. A leading German machine manufacturing company contacted him to buy his invention for more than 10 billion VND. He also received a number of offers from companies from Korea, Japan, Thailand, and China. However, he refused them and only agreed to cooperate in production. The reason he gave was that this research was not for profit but his purpose was for the Vietnamese community.
As a scientist, Mr. Nang always worries about the people of his hometown, when harvesting tons of turmeric roots but the product output is very poor. Therefore, Mr. Nang began researching nano curcumin extraction technology, also known as Nano Curcumin.
According to Mr. Trinh Dinh Nang, for nearly 4 months, he had to work hard day and night to research curcumin extraction technology and design an entire high-tech synchronous production line with “input” being yellow turmeric root. , the “output” is pure nano curcumin. This is the purest synthetic curcumin because the content reaches the highest level of 95-98% and is completely soluble in water. And to keep the patent rights, Mr. Nang currently does not want to announce all of this technology.
Producing super conductors from… rice husks
It is one of the inventions that he first revealed to us. According to Mr. Nang, after about 6 years of research (2009 – 2015) with nearly 3,000 experiments, he successfully produced carbon nano superconductor C70. “This will be the basic source of raw materials in the future used to replace silicon – a substance that is widely used in the machine manufacturing industry, shipbuilding and basic science industries,” Mr. Nang revealed.
This superconductor was created by “barefoot engineer” Trinh Dinh Nang from rice husks, a type of fuel quite close to farmers. He said, rice husks have a very high carbon content, it was this property that made Mr. Nang come up with this bold idea. “Scientists around the world have recognized nano carbon C70 as a superconductor that can completely replace silicon in the future. However, this substance has only been produced in laboratories with a yield of about 100g/cycle. With its superior features and ability to be applied in many fields, the price of this material is very expensive, at 2,255 USD/10g, equivalent to 225,500 USD/1kg.
Meanwhile, according to Mr. Nang, if investment is focused, he can completely produce C70 nano carbon in large quantities at a rate of 1 ton of rice husks can produce 1.5 kg of finished C70 nano carbon. . To demonstrate the outstanding uses of this superconductor, Mr. Nang gave an example: In the electricity industry, carbon nano superconductor C70 will be an excellent power transmission technology with zero resistance. This contributes to solving the problem of electricity consumption during transmission. In the shipbuilding industry, aircraft manufacturing, motor vehicle manufacturing… it will reduce the volume by 1/3 compared to using existing materials. However, if used for evil purposes, carbon nano superconductor C70 can also be a “detonating bomb” with great destructive power.
According to Mr. Nang’s revelation, in the future he will continue to embark on research to produce carbon nano superconductor C84 from the main source of rice husk. Besides, he also said that he may experiment with replacing it with coconut shells and corn cobs – very popular ingredients in Vietnam.
According to the assessment of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the furnace invented by Mr. Trinh Dinh Nang meets standard 30 of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, saving over 80% of fuel compared to imported furnaces. If calculated according to current gasoline prices, burning with diesel only costs 4,000 VND/kg of waste and 1,500 VND/kg when burning with waste oil. Mean while, furnaces from the US, Japan, and UK currently cost between 70,000-80,000 VND/kg of waste.
“The successful research and extraction of pure nano curcumin will open up opportunities to develop production technology in the country, especially in Bac Kan. With the construction of the nano curcumin factory, we will purchase turmeric from people in the districts of Pac Nam, Ba Be, Na Ri, Ngan Son, Cho Moi, Cho Don, then plan the raw material areas to creating stable income for people in remote and remote areas, improving the lives of people in the Northeast and Northwest mountainous areas,” Mr. Nang emphasized.
P.Bình – Q.Chiến/Báo Gia đình & Xã hội
