I quit school for my father to study science

His son dropped out of the university program to manage his work on behalf of his father, and he bought a college curriculum to study and invent practical technologies for life. It is the farmer Nguyen Van Toan (Xuan Son village, Duc Minh commune, Dak Mil district, Dak Nong province) that is nearly 60 years old, and is new to 6th grade education.

Mr. Toan himself learns computers to collect information on the internet, design works and machines

Mr. Toan used to go down to Ho Chi Minh City to bring two products: ' Pulp-making technology according to multi-step process of using chemicals ' and ' Dryer of agricultural products and vertical construction materials ' to join the Fair equipment technology 2005 organized by Ministry of Science & Technology in Ho Chi Minh City last October.

And he received a gold cup by the fair organizers gave useful products and received many invitations to cooperate and order by businesses.

The inventions that came to him were accidental when he had to deal with the difficulties at work. In the early 1980s, while working as the head of Duc Minh's cooperative, Toan bought the paper factory of a private establishment in Ho Chi Minh City.

At that time, it was very difficult to buy chemicals, Mr. Toan had to find a way to reduce the amount of NaOH in the process of cooking ingredients. When he was about to succeed, the members did not have the patience with the inefficient paper mill. They agreed to sell the factory, and Mr. Toan lost his position.

It was not until 1999 that Mr. Toan was able to continue the unfinished research project nearly 20 years ago. Through television, Mr. Toan knew that Vinh Hao SFE, Bac Quang district, Ha Giang province had processed pulp.

He took a bus to the SFE and asked them to let him experiment with cooking new materials with a commitment: shorter cooking time, more chemical savings .

In less than a week, Mr. Toan left Vinh Hao Forest Enterprise with a confirmation paper: ' To cook 1 ton of pulp, previously the Vinh Hao Forest Enterprise had to use from 500 to 550kg of NaOH, now with his technology. Toàn, the factory does not need to change any equipment but only consumes 350kg of NaOH . '

If nearly 300 of our country's pulp factories now apply this technology, Mr. Toan will save several hundred billion dongs of the cost of buying chemicals each year, not to mention the environmental benefits.

The National Office of Intellectual Property of the Ministry of Science and Technology granted a patent for utility solution No. 397 on " Solutions for cooking cellulose-containing materials by a multi-step process using chemicals " for Mr. Toan.

In order to have the capital to build a pulp mill with a capacity of 20,000 tons of pulp a year as dreamed, Mr. Toan started by establishing an agricultural service cooperative specializing in agricultural products and this is an opportunity for scientific work. Toan's second school was born.

In the process of processing agricultural products, Mr. Toan found that conventional kilns are being applied to horizontal drying floors, causing waste of fuel, wasting effort, affecting product quality.

Mr. Toan tinkered to design a new type of oven with vertical drying floor to take advantage of the heat, the materials to be dried separately from each layer are not turned upside down so that it will be drier and not smoky, crushed.

Since he had never worked as a mechanic, the construction of a new kiln was very costly for Mr. Toan, but Mr. Toan was not discouraged and eventually succeeded.

Supported by his son who is studying at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, in early 2003, Toan completed the file of standing kiln technology to submit to the National Technical Innovation Contest for the 7th time and won the prize encouragement in the field of preserving and processing agricultural products. A private mechanical enterprise has bought the rights to manufacture Toan's stand dryer for VND 50 million.

When we arrived at the house, Mr. Toan was passionately on the meticulous computer to design another project, which was the waste water treatment system for the pulp mill.

From the tour of pulp-making factories, Toan was startled when he learned that the construction of a wastewater treatment system was bigger than the construction of a factory . Having a factory after operating for a short time had to close because the cost to operate the wastewater treatment system was too high.

Toan calls his son who is going to college to go home instead of running the cooperative's activities, and he specializes in researching wastewater treatment technology.

Mr. Toan excitedly told us that his wastewater treatment technology is in the review phase, he will register the utility solution exclusively next year at the same time as he calls on investors to cooperate. Paper factory construction.

According to Toan, his wastewater treatment system only accounts for about 1/6 of the total construction capital of the plant and the operation cost is negligible thanks to the separation of different types of waste.

Vo Phung Hoang