Page 150 - Technical Cooperation Project for Building Capacity for Can Tho University...

Chapter 5 Voices from CTU’s Staff and Students

were trained. The result achievements from the Project were not only significant support for teaching
and researching biological control at CTU but also a meaningful contribution to the popularization
of environmentally friendly crop protection methods through conducting experiments in fields at
seven provinces in the MD, which made changing the thinking of farmers in the application of these
effective techniques. Moreover, the skills and confidence of both staff and students in international
collaboration, researching the field of biological control, publication, and making presentations have
positively been improved.
I am proud to be a research leader in carrying out this Project. On behalf of the research team, I
sincerely thank the supports from JICA officers and Japanese professors collaborating with CTU.

5.2.2 Receiving Equipment (Electric Furnace) under Model Joint Research
(TC-4)

Associate Prof. Dr. Nguyen Huu Chiem

Department of Environmental Sciences

College of Environment & Natural Resources
Email: nhchiem@ctu.edu.vn

Biochar is a porous carbonaceous and fine-grained solid produced from the thermal decomposition
of biomass in the absence of oxygen. Biochar is often produced in big amounts in field conditions
in which the temperature cannot be controlled. Thanks to the Project, we received an electronic
furnace VMF-165, Yamada Denki (Japan), in April 2017. We have used the furnace to produce a lot of
o o o
biochar samples in precise, controlled temperatures, e.g., 500 C, 700 C, and 900 C, which had not been
produced in CTU before. A new research group has been formed, the so-called “biochar group,” since
we had the furnace. We were happy to have good results of the physicochemical characteristics of the
biochars prepared at different temperatures. Our undergraduate and postgraduate students from the
College of Environment and Natural Resources have used the furnace to produce their own samples
from other various materials such as soil, domestic organic garbage, rice straw, etc. for their graduation
theses. The results of biochar studies showed that some biochars could be used to remove the colors
of the dyes, nitrate, and ammonium prepared from standard solution and biogas effluents and
pesticides in lab conditions. We believe that more biochar samples from the wastes of agriculture and
aquacultures will be produced by the furnace and tested for their capacity of removing heavy metals
and pesticide residues in the water and soil environment in the future.

We would like to thank Professor Okayama Takayuki (TUAT) for searching for the furnace in Japan,
introducing it to the Project, and processing documents to export the furnace to Viet Nam. We also
thank Dr. Ryota Kose (TUAT), who spent a week in our college instructing our young staff to operate
the furnace to produce the biochars. We would like to thank the PMU of the CTU Improvement project
for processing documentation of the import of the furnace to CTU.

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