Fighting against paper pollution for 40 years



Although he is over 70 years old, Chen Kefu, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a professor at South China University of Technology, is hale and hearty and his workload has not decreased at all. In addition to going out for meetings, he works in the office the rest of the time, and occasionally walks around the campus when he is free. "If you choose this line of work, you can't slack off." 'he said.

Chen Kefu's office hangs a photo of him and his teacher Long Yanquan. "Teacher Long often said, when we can solve the two difficult problems of paper pollution and backward equipment, there will be real progress." This sentence Chen Kefu has always taken to heart.

For more than 40 years, he led the team to continuously "declare war" on papermaking pollution and achieved a series of breakthrough results. Recently, China Paper network announced the "Reform and start again, paper industry ten leading figures" list, as the first academician of China's paper industry, he was listed.

From mechanics to paper making

A native of Haifeng County in Guangdong province, Chen Kefu was born in 1942, when the Japanese occupied the coastal areas of Guangdong.

Born in a time of war and chaos, Chen Kefu's father hoped that his son could overcome all kinds of difficulties on the road of life, so he named it "Overcome". With excellent academic performance since childhood, he was admitted to the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics of Fudan University.

Hearing that the student had been admitted to a prestigious school, Chen Kefu's middle school teacher was very happy and proposed to change the "fu" in his name to "Fu", "meaning that I was the first student in our middle school to" conquer "the" fortress "of Fudan University."

At that time, Fudan University's mathematics and mechanics graduates were usually assigned to work in the army, but for various reasons, Chen Kefu could not go on this road. After graduating from college, he stayed in school and worked on the army farm for nearly four years. Then he received an offer to work at Tianjin Institute of Light Industry. "I was so happy in my heart that I went immediately." Chen Kefu recalled, "As soon as we met, the teacher asked me, Do you know what I am here for? I said I don't know."

Later, Chen Kefu learned that the person who sent him the notice was Long Yanquan, a famous papermaking expert in China. At that time, Long's team needed someone who understood fluid mechanics, so they found Chen Kefu, who majored in mechanics.

At that time, Chen Kefu knew nothing about paper making. In order to let the "little white" quickly enter the state, Long Yanquan took two paper teaching materials to him and said: "You first go to the paper factory to learn."

So Chen Ke resumed the factory and began the work of "three shifts". In his work, he consciously connected the knowledge of mechanics with the practice of papermaking.

A year and a half later, Chen Kefu basically mastered the papermaking process and basic knowledge of the industry, and then stepped into the door of papermaking. This experience also shaped his research principle: to do research, you need to lean down and keep your feet on the ground.

Research and development of medium concentration technology

In 1994, the "Huaihe River Basin Water pollution Incident" occurred in China, which shocked the whole world. The discharge of untreated wastewater by papermaking enterprises was an important reason. "The water that comes out is black." Chen Kefu was distressed to hear such a description of the polluted land.

"In the whole process of papermaking, pulping bleaching is the main link causing pollution. In this process, the low concentration technology is generally used, and the pulp is bleached with chlorine gas." Chen Kefu said that he and other experts proposed the use of medium concentration technology, no chlorine bleaching, switching to medium concentration chlorine free or less chlorine bleaching technology.

"To further reduce pollution, in addition to the implementation of cleaning technology, we must increase the concentration of pulp and reduce water consumption." Chen Kefu said, "The use of medium concentration pulping technology can effectively reduce water consumption, but at that time, most of China's paper enterprises use low concentration technology, the water consumption per ton of pulp is five times the world level."

The idea is beautiful, but the realization is difficult.

During that time, Chen Kefu and his team took the laboratory as their home, repeatedly conducted experiments, and finally developed China's first medium thick pulp conveying and mixing device; Then they developed a set of non-chlorine bleaching technology and equipment with independent intellectual property rights.

At the same time, Chen Kefu is still carrying out theoretical research on the concentration technology. Since 1987, he has hardly stopped his research in this area.

"Today, China's paper industry has realized the whole process of water monitoring, and related technologies have reached the international leading level." What makes him feel gratified is that, according to the environmental Annual report released by the former Ministry of Environmental Protection (now the Ministry of Ecological Environment) in 2017, the paper industry has removed the hat of "the largest water polluter".

Take scientific research as the mission of life

"Write the paper on the land of the motherland." This is what Chen Kefu often says, in his view, the results of theoretical research must be applied to practice.

In 1987, Chen Kefu's research group developed the country's first turbulent medium thick slurry pump was evaluated. It is seen that after the globular pulp enters the pulp pump, the thick pulp that cannot flow originally flows like water in the pipeline. "It really happened." The crowd burst into applause.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, China began to introduce bleached chemical pulp production lines with an annual output of 50,000 tons or 100,000 tons from abroad, and one of the slurry pumps sold for as much as $150,000. "I calculated that with our foundation at that time, we could build one for less than 200,000 yuan." However, Chen Kefu's idea was questioned by his peers, but he did not waver. He took the research group, prepared the experimental site and equipment, and invested in the intense research and development work.

The winter was so cold that "some colleagues were even frozen out." After hard work, Chen Kefu's research group successfully developed the country's first turbulent medium thick slurry pump. On this basis, the following year, the team successfully developed China's first high shear medium concentration mixer, which became one of the few countries in the world that could produce this equipment at that time.