The Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST) recently established the Center for Rubber Research and Technology, according to the Communist Party of Vietnam online newspaper.
The project was implemented by HUST, under the administration of Ministry of Education and Training, from April 2011 to March 2016 with total grant of nearly US$7 million
The project aims to reduce CO2 emissions by replacing fossil-fuel-derived synthetic rubber with natural rubber.
Through the project, Vietnamese and Japanese researchers have successfully developed technologies to reduce protein in natural rubber, which can cause skin allergy, in order to produce high-performance materials and alleviate environmentally negative impacts from natural rubber processing.
It has also successfully developed advanced wastewater treatment technology for rubber processing factories, which actively contributed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and recovering methane gas as an energy source. The researchers have also successfully developed enzymes to decompose cellulosic biomass with rubber to produce sugar and alcohol.
Managed by a Board of Directors including Dr. Phan Trung Nghia and Japanese Co-Director, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Seiichi Kawahara, Nagaoka University of Technology (Japan), the Center will further develop the technology and equipment of the project.