37-year-old Le Thi Xuan Thuy, a doctorate holder, is working as a lecturer at the Faculty of Environment in the Da Nang University of Science and Technology. Especially, she possesses a strong passion for environmental research activities with the aim of better serving the interests of the whole community.

Le Thi Xuan Thuy (2nd from left) is seen at a recent municipal-level ceremony which honoured local individuals having outstanding scientific ad technological achievements this year

Notable amongst Thuy’s scientific works are ‘The treatment of heavy metal ions-contaminated wastewater with a magnetic material covered with gamma-polyglutamic acid’, and ‘Multilayer ground water filtration equipment’. In particular, they have been granted Certificates of Protection by the National Office of Intellectual Property of Viet Nam.

Thuy said, during her study in Japan in 2007 for a master's degree, she was very impressed by the high practicability of gamma which was created by her Japanese teacher. At that time, she was in charge of assisting her foreign teacher in assessing the effectiveness of this chemical material in removing heavy metals, mercury for instance.

As a result of the 2011 Fukushima incident in Japan, waste water contained a large amount of Cesium (Cs) and Strontium (Sr), and this fact inspired Thuy to conduct research into the use of the gamma to retrieve lead and treat the 2 metals.

Coming back to Viet Nam, Thuy noticed that waste water here contained many heavy metals such as nickel, copper, zinc, and lead. Thuy, therefore, decided to continue her research into the use of gamma for the treatment of these metals.

Gamma is a new highly expensive material. So, how to create cheaper materials which boast features much similar to gamma has always occupied her mind. Finally, Thuy’s great efforts were paid off as she successfully created a magnetic material covered with gamma-polyglutamic acid. 

To date, Thuy-created chemical material has been applied at a local plating plant- one of the production models that discharge heavy metals, and the application has proved highly effective.

Besides, the ‘Multilayer ground water filtration equipment’ also shows off high real-world applicability. Thuy realised that many people still used aluminum-contaminated water.

In the past, there were many methods of treating aluminum-contaminated water by using long plastic pipes featuring the mixture of such materials as sand, grit, and cotton. However, these methods have been less effective-than-expected.

Meanwhile, Thuy-created equipment also uses the above-mentioned materials but that are positioned into separate compartments.

Her creations have been applied widely in urban areas in some localities nationwide and many rural areas in the neighbouring province of Quang Nam.

Thuy hopes that her research will be commercialised to help bring her invention to market, thereby extending public access to her highly practicable products.

More recently, Thuy was awarded with a Certificate of Merit from the municipal People's Committee in recognition of her outstanding scientific and technological achievements this year.