09/01/2018
With increased socio-economic development, the demand for materials and commodities that generate vast amounts of waste and pollute the environment also rises. To address the problems of waste treatment, Dr Nguyễn Đình Trọng, Chairman of technology firm T-Tech Việt Nam Corporation (T-Tech), conducted research to provide the most efficient, cost-saving solutions that would match the Vietnamese conditions and support environmental protection activities.
T-Tech was honoured at the 2017 Eco-products International Fair (EPIF) held in Hồ Chí Minh City from May 11 - 13. The Vietnam Environment Administration Magazine (VEM) spoke to Dr. Trọng about the company’s waste treatment solutions and technologies.
Dr. Nguyễn Đình Trọng Chairman of Việt Nam T-Tech Corporation |
VEM: Can you tell us about your company and the major fields in which it operates?
Dr. Nguyễn Đình Trọng: T-Tech was founded on November 6, 2002, to make high-quality, scientific and technological products, such as devices to test building materials, machines to evaluate the quality of buildings, uninterruptible power supply (UPS), power inverter, as well as broadcasting equipment and telecommunication electronics.
Five years ago, the company started developing waste treatment technologies and is now focussing on three main products: Daily-living waste incinerator, medical waste incinerator and industrial waste incinerator. These 3 types of incinerators help provide various solutions to handle waste, and ensure clean environment for the people and the society. The incinerators produced by T-Tech are well-designed, integrated with modern technologies and are in compliance with local conditions and environmental regulations.
VEM: How are T-Tech’s incinerators different from the available products in Việt Nam?
Dr. Nguyễn Đình Trọng: At the moment, the impediments for Việt Nam in its waste treatment process are uncategorised waste and the high cost of burning waste in the rural areas. Therefore, T-Tech has installed many waste incinerators for the local people to meet the conditions in their areas. A typical product is the CNC natural-gas daily-living waste incinerator, which is equipped with two primary combustion chambers and two secondary combustion chambers. This product does not need a large area to be stationed, produces no secondary pollution, costs users a quarter to a half than for imported products, and is locally made and easy to operate, maintain and upgrade. Besides these, the incinerator is equipped with an optimal thermal radiation system and an intelligent convective heat airflow system to increase the internal temperature and take advantage of the excess heat, raising the efficiency of the incinerator. It is made from fire-resistant materials, which help it endure heat of up to 1,750ºC, and operate durably and consistently. A CNC incinerator is designed better than other available products in the market, as it is equipped with a waste-drying chamber, a waste combustion chamber, two gas and ash burn-out chambers, a heat sink and a gas saving chamber, as well as a dust trap chamber, and a stainless steel chimney to withstand acidic and toxic environment. It has a height of more than 20m, creating a perfect line from drying waste, incineration, combustion ash, burning gas, saving gas, heat-sink, and dust traps that are integrated in a synchronous, easy-to-operate and highly-efficient system and produce emission that meet Vietnam’s current standards.
The company’s waste treatment solutions can purify wastes to reach the ratio of landfilled wastes at below 10%. After being combusted, inorganic wastes such as bricks, tiles, building materials and their ashes are mixed with cement and chippings to produce non-fired bricks. Vegetables and clean organic wastes are used to produce organic fertilisers. Plastic and nylon wastes are recycled to raise income for the company and reduce the amount of dioxin and furan compounds generated during the combustion process. At least 5% of the clean organic wastes are composted to produce gas, which will increase the temperature of the incinerator and improve the quality of emission generated by the burning process. Waste paper, cardboard boxes and wooden objects are either burnt or recycled. After successful experiments, T-Tech Việt Nam has stationed its incinerators in many provinces such as Bắc Giang, Hà Giang, Long An, Trà Vinh, Nam Định and Nghệ An.
A T-Tech Việt Nam’s incinerator is stationed in An Châu Town, Sơn Động District, Bắc Giang Province |
VEM: Some businesses find the waste treatment industry highly risky, as it needs big investment but offers small profits. What do you have to say about this?
Dr. Nguyễn Đình Trọng: No company can avoid risks and failures while operating in a new field, if it has not studied and researched the market, and prepared efficient business plans and strategies. Many companies and scientists have studied waste treatment solutions but have failed to apply their ideas in practice for various reasons, such as the low quality of market research and product development, and low capital. Meanwhile, the amount of State budget allocated for this sector is low, so companies and individuals would surely fail if they only depended on the State disbursement to develop highly efficient waste treatment solutions. In addition to this, a company investing more than VND1.2 million per tonne in the waste treatment industry would suffer loss from the beginning, if it is unable to earn from the recycled products. Those that work in this sector must be patient, determined, competent, have sufficient capital and must have done adequate research about the market.
VEM: What policies should the State and the Government implement to support businesses that develop and deploy waste treatment solutions, and technologies in Việt Nam?
Dr. Nguyễn Đình Trọng: Government agencies need to deeply integrate into the environmental technology market to find out highly-competent businesses and provide supportive policies for them. A lot of the Vietnamese companies are competent, but they have low capital and few opportunities to demonstrate their technologies, so they cannot draw the attention of the authorities. Therefore, the State and the Government should create a preferential mechanism and policy to encourage companies whose technologies are advanced, creative, efficient and environment-friendly. They should also make the market fairer for every company, and avoid bias while selecting and approving projects. However, the companies themselves are still the most important factor, as they should have large amount of capital, master their technologies, understand the market, and must be well-organised to provide practical and effective solutions for the community■
VEM: Thank you!
Phương Linh (Implemented)