Jo Apr 3, 2025
Since blasting always carries a great risk of accidents, it is of vital importance to ensure the maximum initiation reliability, precision and safety of blasting devices.
The present initiation systems include an electric initiation system and an electronic initiation system using electric wires as a blasting device, and a detonating cord system and a non-electric “Nonel” initiation system without using wires.
The detonating cord system and the non-electric “Nonel” system account for more than 80-90% of the currently used blasting devices. The detonating cord system is still widely used in open-cut bench blasting and underground mining blasting due to its high detonation reliability by the bidirectional initiation of the circuit despite its high-cost and emission of a large quantity of blasting gas.
In the meanwhile, the “Nonel” initiation system has the advantage of low cost, but its reliability is lower than the bidirectional initiation system because the circuits are connected in a unidirectional (indirect) initiation mode. Therefore, there is a continuous research to increase the initiation reliability of these unidirectional connectors.
Ryu In Mu, a researcher at the Faculty of Mining Engineering, has completed an initiation system available for all blasting operations including mine blasting by adding the components of the non-electric "pulkkot" initiation system, a direct-initiation bidirectional blasting device, and by improving its characteristics.
This initiating system provides tensile strength of more than 1N ensuring 100% initiation of shock tubes in the connector and it is safe in blasting, and storage and handling of system elements because the connector has no detonators.
The non-electric "pulkkot" initiation system was fully introduced into all blasting operations including open and underground mine blasting, thus reducing the cost of fragmentation significantly by increasing the explosive energy more than twice without explosion and blasting gas exhaust with a reliability of 99.99% without misfire.
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Jo Apr 2, 2025
The 38th Science and Technology Festival of Kim Chaek University of Technology (KUT) took place from Feb. 4 to 7 in the university gymnasium, on the theme “Science and technology is the locomotive of the overall national prosperity”.
The festival was divided into a machine and transport panel, an IT and communications panel and an electron and automation panel. Presented there were more than 270 sci-tech achievements from 30-odd units of KUT.
Highly appreciated were 80-odd research achievements among which two proposals including “Heavy rail steel productivity enhancement and quality improvement by the combined steel making method and CO gas stirring method” by Ra Ju Hyon, an institute head of the Faculty of Metal Engineering got special grade, twelve took the first place and twenty-five took the second.
In the ranking of units, the Faculty of Heat Engineering, the Faculty of Electronics and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering took the lead.
During the festival, successes and experience were widely shared and transferred through the presentation and examination of valuable sci-tech proposals and technical exchange among visitors.
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Jo Mar 28, 2025
Nitrite is one of the toxic substances existing in foods such as fish, meat products and vegetables, which has a great impact on human life and health. When nitrite ions enter the body, they bind with blood hemoglobin to form metahemoglobin, causing it to lose its oxygen-carrying capacity. It also combines with amines and amides of the digestive organ to produce carcinogenic nitrosamine compound. Therefore, an accurate measurement of nitrite concentration is very important for protecting human life and health.
So far, various methods of detecting nitrite, such as chromatography, spectrophotometry, and electrochemical analysis, have been developed. Among these methods, the detection of nitrite ions by electrochemical sensing electrodes is a major candidate for nitrite detection due to its high sensitivity, selectivity and fast response. In particular, modified electrodes based on conducting polymers including polyaniline, polypyrrole and polyphenylene have received great attention in the development of sensing electrodes using them because of their ability to prevent surface contamination and improve the electrochemical properties of the electrodes.
Pak Jong Sung, a section head at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering, has developed a novel electrochemically modified carbon paste electrode based on PANI-TiO2/Pt nanocomposites.
The experimental results demonstrate that the PANI-TiO2/Pt electrode has pretty excellent electrocatalytic ability for oxidation of nitrite.
For more information, please refer to his paper “Electrochemical Detection of Nitrite on PANI-TiO2/Pt Nanocomposite−Modified Carbon Paste Electrodes Using TOPSIS and Taguchi Methods” in “ACS Omega” (SCI).
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Jo Mar 27, 2025
Commonly, arsenic-bearing gold ore is very refractory. Therefore, it is necessary to break these ores up to the gold particle size or decompose them to make gold exposed before leaching. The process such as decomposition and crushing prior to leaching is called pretreatment of refractory gold ore. Recently, many researchers have studied the pretreatment of gold bearing arsenopyrite to expose gold and remove arsenic by changing the mineral composition, electrochemical and physicochemical properties of gold ore.
There are many pretreatment methods of refractory gold ores including roasting oxidation, bacterial oxidation, pressure oxidation and chemical pretreatment. Particularly, the chemical treatment methods are widely used due to its low cost. Among them, alkaline pretreatment is considered to be the most economical and eco-friendly. However, this method is not widely used due to the dependence of alkaline concentration, temperature and pressure.
Recently, ultrasound has been widely used to accelerate the speed of chemical reaction. Many researchers have already studied the effects of ultrasound on gold and zinc extraction, on copper extraction from copper ore, on leaching of phosphate using hydrochloric acid, and on sulfuric acid leaching of colemanite. However, the effects of ultrasonic power and intensity of mechanical agitation on leaching of minerals are rarely involved.
Hong Won Chol, a researcher at the Faculty of Mining Engineering, has investigated the effect of the ultrasonic power and mechanical agitation intensity of pulp on alkaline pretreatment of gold-bearing arsenopyrite.
He studied the effect of the pulp temperature on the leaching efficiency in alkaline pretreatment of arsenopyrite under both ultrasonic and non-ultrasonic conditions. Compared with the non-ultrasound condition at the temperature of 60℃, arsenic extraction and gold extraction increased by 20 % and 14.4 %, respectively, in the presence of ultrasound at ambient temperature.
You can find more information in his paper “Effects of Ultrasonic Power and Intensity of Mechanical Agitation on Pretreatment of a Gold-Bearing Arsenopyrite” in “Archives of Acoustics” (SCI).
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Jo Mar 26, 2025
Rapid development of computer network increases the applications of e-learning, which provides teachers and students with convenience and flexibility.
In the environment of distance education, interaction is a very important factor for raising the efficiency of teaching and self-study. Especially, in distance education of design project which deals with the designing of circuits or machinery, ensuring the interaction becomes more important since explicit and implicit knowledge hold large portion at the same time.
To raise the interaction in the distance learning, Jong Kum Sil, a lecturer at the Faculty of Distance Education, has proposed an e-learning system where a virtual board is introduced.
The main system consists of a teacher’s computer equipped with various exam and plagiarism-prevention tools, and client computers connected with the teacher’s by network. It also includes various tools for assessing the students’ design projects and the virtual board which is connected with teacher’s computer, so the students can ask questions online through the virtual board for teacher’s guidance. By inserting authentication to the students’ multi-media, she raised the fairness and objectiveness in assessing the students’ tasks.
For further details, please refer to her paper “An interactive e-learning system equipped with plagiarism detection tool for the distance education of the design course” in “INFORMATICA” (SCI).
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Jo Mar 25, 2025
Hydrogen sulfide is a polluting gas that is produced in various industrial fields including oil processing and fertilizer production. It is also generated in the course of people’s living. Hydrogen sulfide is very toxic to human health. Hydrogen sulfide can cause blood poisoning and its high concentrations (higher than 250ppm) may lead to death.
Therefore, detection of toxic gases has been a major focus of sensor research in recent years. Accurate measurement of hydrogen sulfide gas concentration is very important for protecting human life and health. So far, various sensors for detecting hydrogen sulfide gas have been developed.
Chemoresistive sensors based on conductive polymer are cheap and operable and responsive at room temperature. In particular, nanocomposites based on conductive polymer and metal oxide nanoparticles have excellent nanostructural properties and high sensitivity and their responses to gases are fast.
Cha Ho San, a student at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering, has prepared a chemoresistive H2S gas sensor based on PANI/TiO2/CuCl2 nanocomposite (PTCN) impregnated fabric by in situ synthesis method (ISM).
For more information, please refer to his paper “Chemoresistive H2S sensor based on PANI/TiO2/CuCl2 nanocomposite impregnated conductive fabric using TOPSIS and Taguchi method” in “Engineering Research Express” (SCI).
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