Pan Congming, head of purification process at a precious metal smelting plant, a subsidiary of Jinchuan Group in Northwest China's Gansu province, has been elected as a delegate to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Starting as an ordinary worker, Pan has grown into a top technician in the precious metal extraction and refining field, winning provincial and national honorary titles in recognition of his commitment to technological progress.

Pan and his team are mainly responsible for the extraction of platinum group metals from slag waste. It takes more than 20 steps to recover one kind of precious metal, with more than 200 indicators to gauge the procedure. What makes Pan stand out is his discerning power to identify the precious metal content from observing the color changes of the liquid in the smeltering process.

After tens of thousands of tests in countless days and nights, Pan's team has developed a set of stable, reliable, economical and environmentally-friendly extraction techniques, which have replaced the old practices used for more than 30 years.

In January 2020, the team's invention of "green and efficient extraction technology of platinum, palladium, rhodium and iridium in nickel anode slime" won the second prize in the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award.

Pan became the only frontline worker from five provincial-level regions in Northwest China to win the honor, and the technique has also created a cumulative economic benefit of nearly 1.2 billion yuan ($167.76 million).

Pan said he and his team are able to make such achievements because China is inspiring innovation-driven growth in every sector.

Pan is always ready to share his knowledge and skills with his colleagues and apprentices. Over the years, he has written over 300,000 words in training materials, which have been widely used in the training of smelting professionals.