The metallurgical industry is an important economic sector that cements the foundation for the self-supporting economy of the country.

Active efforts are made in the field of scientific research as well as at the production units to fully meet the daily-growing demand for iron and steel and improve their quality.

There are scientists at the Faculty of Metal Engineering of Kim Chaek University of Technology who played a core role in establishing a new active caustic lime production process with raw materials available in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

It was in 2017 that Section Chief Choe Rim Ho and other researchers of the faculty started the research into the active caustic lime.

When the actual extraction rate of refining is raised by improving the quality of caustic lime in the steelmaking process, the quality of steel will be considerably improved that much. All the scientists and technicians in the field of metallurgy know that it is important to solve the problem. But they hesitated to do the research work because it was an unfamiliar field which needs a determination to suffer a trouble.

However, Section Chief Choe Rim Ho accepted it as an important research task he should take upon himself as a scientist to pioneer the field.

As a matter of fact, many people told him that it will be risky and that if he starts the research and fails in it, his reputation will be injured. But he took the road of pioneering together with members of the research group to produce quality caustic lime of Korean style.

Through repeated experiments and simulated calculation, they proved scientifically that they can produce active caustic lime of high purity and buckled down to establishing a new production process.

It was not easy to establish a new active caustic lime production process.

They had neither a necessary design nor sufficient materials. But they succeeded in establishing the process by pooling their creative wisdom and efforts.

The success in their research was highly estimated at the 39th Sci-Tech Festival of Kim Chaek University of Technology held under the theme of "Constant Increase of the Sci-Tech Forces" in February.

As to the significance of the establishment of the process of producing the active caustic lime of high purity, Section Chief Choe Rim Ho said:

"The establishment of the active caustic lime production technology made it possible to solve the problem of removing sulfur and phosphorus, the most difficult problem in improving the quality of steel. As a result, a firm sci-tech guarantee has been provided to put the steel industry of the country on a world advanced level. Basing ourselves on the success, we are going to further develop the active caustic lime production technology and perfect the method of improving the quality of steel using it all the more and thus put the steel industry of the country on a high level and contribute to strengthening its independent foundation."

Now they are making speculation, study and devoted efforts to more reliably guarantee the metallurgical industry of the country scientifically and technologically in hearty response to the decisions of the historic Ninth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea.