economy

Kim Il Sung University developed basalt fibre, which is regarded as one of the world’s four fibres, along with carbon fibre, aramid fibre and polyethylene fibre.

The basalt fibre, developed by researchers of the resources science faculty, is a natural mineral fibre made from basalt abundant in the country as a raw material by using a high-temperature fusion tension technique.

“Basalt fibre has tensile strength of 2.9-3.9GPa which is stronger than that of glass fibre, and is excellent in mechanical properties, acid resistance, alkali resistance, insulation property, water resistance, adiabaticity and sound insulativity, so it can substitute completely for glass fibre reinforced material and partially for carbon fibre reinforced material and costs considerably low. Therefore, basalt fibre and composites are very likely to be used in various fields of the national economy including road, construction, automobile, ship building, chemical industry and the aerospace industry,” said Ri Tok Sung, PhD.

The university set a goal of developing basalt fibre of great utility value, and intensified relevant research. 

Based on the study of the trend of development of basalt production and data on the relevant advanced technology, the researchers analysed the components of basalt deposited in the country and perfected the basalt fibre production technique to suite the actual conditions of the country.

The development group worked hard to solve the problem of heating temperature and nozzle, key factors for extracting fibre from basalt whose melting point is high.

In this course, they opened up the possibility of extracting fibre through magnetic nozzle instead of expensive platinum-rhodium alloy nozzle by lowering crystallization temperature and delaying crystallization speed of molten material by way of reducing and removing iron elements of basalt. 

They also perfectly solved the problems of smelting furnace wall structure and installation to succeed in extracting basalt fibre. 

They built a basalt fibre production line on the basis of the research findings and introduced the produced fibre into road paving and repair in different parts of Pyongyang, thus making it possible to double the lifetime of roads at half of the previous cost.