Recently, Prof. Liu, the DNL1606 group leader of Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy (DNL), has been invited as the Editorial Board Member of Scientific Reports (web: http://www.nature.com/srep). His main responsibilities for the journal are reviewing and accepting articles related to fields of electronics, photonics and device physics.
　　Scientific Reports was founded in 2011. With its Impact Factor increased to 5.578 in 2015, it is one of the fastest growing and highest ranked multidisciplinary open-access journals worldwide.The publications on Scientific Reports cover many fields, including Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Earth Science, etc.(By ZHANG Doudou)
　　

　　The Special Topic: Catalysis—Facing the Future, edited by Prof. BAO Xinhe, has been published on the second volume of National Science Review(NSR) recently (http://nsr.oxfordjournals.org/content/current). In this issue, a few internationally recognized experts on catalysis have provided their views and perspectives on the future developments of catalysis science and technology. Prof. Gerhard Ertl, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, and Prof. Avelino Corma, President of the International Association of Catalysis Societies, shared their views in our exclusive interview. Prospects from Prof. Jens N?rskov, Prof. Gabriele Centi, Prof. Can Li and Prof. Bert Weckhuysen on theoretical catalysis, energy catalysis, photocatalysis and in-situ characterization of catalytic dynamics, respectively, are important guides for future catalysis research. Prof. LI Yadong, Prof. XIE Zaiku, Prof. SU Dangsheng and the professors from our own research team also provide systematic reviews and highlight on the recent progress in catalysis from fundamental studies to commercial applications, thus presenting an overview of catalysis research in China.
　　National Science Review (NSR) is the first review journal in English published quarterly under the auspices of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Prof. BAI Chunli is the editor in chief of NSR, and several distinguished scientists are invited as associate editors in the fields of physics, mathematics, chemistry, life science, earth science, materials science and information science. NSR aimsto review cutting-edge developments across science and technology in China and around the world, and focus on topics of interests to the international science community, including multi-national collaborations, global issues in scientific and technological development, and their impact on the society in general. NSR started its publication in 2014 and has been enlisted by Science Citation Index.
　　

　　At the invitation of Shengli Yang academician and Guowang Xu assistant director of DICP, professor He Huang visited DICP and gave a report entitled ‘the development of product engineering oriented health and pharmaceutical industry’ in the biology building hall on July 4. The report was presided over by Professor Zongbao Zhao. Tao Zhang, director of DICP, and more than 50 researchers and students attended the report.
　　Professor Huang summarized previous work and progress of his recent work. The first part of his report was on biosynthesis and processing of bio-based platform chemical synthesis and processing, especially dealing with the DHA production technology route and subsequent product development, and analysis and research on regulation of biosynthesis of arachidonic acid metabolic network. In the second part, professor Huang elaborated the research progress on vitamin K2, trehalose, enzyme products (pharmaceutical intermediates), and luciferase. These research results are not only in the world advanced level, but also bring the economic benefits that meet the national development, enterprise and social needs. After the report, the issue of industrialization and the cultivation of scientific and technological personnel were lively discussed.
　　 
　　Introduction of professor He Huang
　　He Huang, doctor of engineering, and doctoral supervisor, winner of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, is professor of Nanjing University of Technology, incumbent Dean of School of Pharmaceutical Sciences Nanjing University of Technology, Office director of Nanjing University of Technology collaborative innovation program, Director of Jiangsu Province Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Center, Director of Sinopec Nanjing Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Center, member of Youth Committee of Jiangsu Province, adjunct professor of Zhejiang University, and industrial biotechnology and chemical engineering consultant and expert of National Natural Science Foundation Commission, State Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, the State Development Bank, and other departments. He also was awarded the national outstanding scientific and technological workers, and funded by the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, Education Ministry of China. In recent years, professor He Huang was mainly engaged in biological production of bio-based chemicals, which was supported by a number of provincial, ministerial and national funds.
　　Professor Huang has published more than 90 research articles, 3 monographs, 1 translation work, and held 48 licensed patents. Related scientific research achievements have be awarded one prize of the Ministry of Education Technological Invention Award first prize, and three prizes of China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Association Technology invention first prize.
　　(By Xue Yu)
　　

　　Recently, Prof. Can Li`s group in State Key Laboratory of Catalysis and the solar energy division of Dalian National Laboratory of Clean Energy published new result on photoelectrical imaging of photogenerated charge separations on different facets of a single photocatalyst particle. Making use of the newly developed photoelectrical imaging technique, they gave the first direct evidence of highly anisotropic photogenerated charge separations on different facets of a single BiVO4 photocatalyst, under in situ photo illumination. The role of the built-in electric field in SCR of different facets played in the anisotropic photoinduced charge transfer in a single semiconductor crystal is clearly revealed. This work is now online published in the journal of Angewandte Chemie International Edition. （http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.201504135）
　　Producing solar fuels by harvesting energy from sunlight offers promising approaches to solve the energy challenge with minimal environmental impact. Among these approaches, photocatalytic splitting of water into H2 and O2 in the presence of photocatalysts is recognized as an ideal way for utilizing the solar energy. Advancing these photocatalysts towards high light to energy conversion efficiency requires efficient separation of photogenerated electrons and holes. Focusing on this key issue, strategies and new concepts were proposed in Prof. Can Li’s group in the past few years: the fabrication of CdS/MoS2 heterojunction resulted in much higher photocatalytic activity of H2 evolution than CdS/Pt (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2008, 130, 7176-7177)；Surface-phase sensitive UV Raman spectroscopy revealed that, the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 can be greatly enhanced when anatase TiO2 nanoparticles were highly dispersed on the surface of rutile TiO2 to form anatase–rutile surface-phase junctions (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 120: 1766-1769 2008). Based on this concept, they further found the surface phase junction on Ga2O3 can significantly improve photocatalytic overall water splitting into H2 and O2. Ultra-fast transit absorption spectroscopy indicated that fast electron transfer (<3 ps) across the phase junction helped the charge separation (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2012, 51, 13089-13092); Using monoclinic bismuth vanadate crystal as a model photocatalyst, they demonstrated that efficient charge separation can be achieved on different crystal facets, as evidenced by the reduction reaction with photogenerated electrons and oxidation reaction with photogenerated holes (Nature Comm., 2013,4,1432).
　　To further reveal the key issue of charge separation in these systems, they recently developed a new technique, Spatially Resolved Surface Photovoltage Spectroscopy (SRSPS) in combination with Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy (KPFM) to directly probe the spatial distribution of photogenerated charge from nanometer to micrometer scale, on the surface of photocatalysts. Making use of the newly developed technique, they gave the first direct evidence of highly anisotropic photogenerated charge separation on different facets of a single BiVO4 photocatalyst. Highly anisotropic photoinduced hole distribution was observed in single BiVO4 crystals with preferentially exposed {010} facets, and the SPV signal intensity on the {011} facet is 70 times stronger than that on the {010} facet. The role of built-in electric field in SCR of different facets played in the anisotropic photoinduced charge transfer in a single semiconductor crystal is clearly revealed. Moreover, single particle fluorescence microscopy provided further evidence to support this new finding. The result gives an insight into the nature of photogenerated charge separation in a single semiconductor photocatalyst particle at nano/micro meter scales. These findings provide the important scientific basis for developing highly efficient photocatalysts of hydrogen evolution, CO2 reduction and other artificial photosynthesis.
　　This work is supported by the major research plan of National Natural Science Foundation of China, Basic Research Program of China (973 project) and Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (2011·iChEM).
　　(By Fengtao Fan and Jian Zhu)

　　The achievement appraisal meeting of “Commercialization Technology for Production of Polyalkylene Polyamine from Monoethanolamine (MEA)” with independent intellectual property rights was carried out by China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation in Beijing on June 30, 2015. Speak highly of the technology was from the appraisal committee directed by Yong Jin, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and professor of Tsinghua University. Mrs. Yanru Jiang, Division Chief of Scientific and Technological Achievement of China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation, chaired the achievement appraisal meeting.
　　The commercialization technology for production of polyalkylene polyamine from MEA, including the technology package and high performance catalyst, has been developed by Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP), Chinese Academy of Sciences. DICP has achieved a series of technological innovations, especially the development of commercial catalyst, internals for trickle-bed amination reactor and separation techniques.
　　In August 2011, DICP and Shandong Alliance Chemical Ltd. first designed and built an industral plant for the production of polyalkylene polyamine from MEA in the scale of 10 kt/a independently. The facility has run stably for nearly 4 years with nearly 0.5 billion Yuan (RMB) of output and 0.1 billion Yuan (RMB) of total profit. On this basis, Shandong Alliance Chemical Ltd. has built another facility with an annual output of 30 kt polyalkylene polyamine and put it into production successfully in March 2015.
　　The industrial technique is scientific, safe and environmentally friendly. It is an advanced technology with MEA conversion of 45%, ethylenediamine (EDA) selectivity over 80%, and purities of EDA, diethylenetriamine (DETA) and piperazine (PIP) are higher than 99.7%, 99.3% and 99.9%, respectively.
　　Appraisal committee believes that the commercialization technology is highly innovative, the integrated technology has reached the international advanced level, especially the reaction pressure and EDA selectivity indicators have led the international advanced level. They agreed appraisal and proposed to strengthen the popularization and application of the technology.
　　Commercialization technology for production of polyalkylene polyamine from MEA has enhanced the international competitiveness of China in the field of Polyalkylene Polyamine. It also broke the monopoly of foreign companies in this field, filled the domestic technology, greatly relieved the contradiction between supply and demand of polyalkylene polyamines, provided critical scientific and technological support for the amine production field, and promoted sustainable development of fine chemical industry. Meanwhile, it will create considerable economic benefits for enterprises, bring significant social benefits, and has good prospects for promotion.
　　(by Yunjie Ding and Li Yan)

　　A series of fluorescent probes for intracellular redox change via mimicking the active center of Glutathione Peroxidase (GPx) developed by the group of Profs. Ke-Li Han from the State Key Laboratory of Molecular Reaction Dynamics at Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics have captured greater researchers’ attention. Recently，a review article entitled "Redox-Responsive Fluorescent Probes with Different Design Strategies" has been invited to publish in Accounts of Chemical Research (Acc. Chem. Res. 2015, 48, 1358?1368. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.accounts.5b00009).
　　Intracellular redox homeostasis governs numerous essential biological processes and presents broad implications in human health and diseases. Given the properties of high chemical activity and short half time, Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) involved in the intracellular redox balance are difficult to be detected. In these regards, the elucidation of the biological functions of intracellular redox changes between ROS and antioxidants has become an important area of research. Fluorescence imaging presents the advantages of higher sensitivity, better selectivity, greater convenience, and less invasiveness compared with other approaches, and has thereby been considered to present a potentially powerful methodology for studying various species in biosystems. Recently, Profs. Han's group have designed and synthesized a series of fluorescent probes for redox changes in biological systems Relying on the active center of GPx. Most of these probes exhibit high sensitivity and good selectivity, absorb in the near-infrared, and respond rapidly. And these works have been published in J. Am. Chem. Soc.、Chem. Commun.、and Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys.. This Account highlight related research progress on fluorescent probes for intracellular redox change, primarily from Profs. Han's group. In this article, they present an overview of the design, photophysical properties, and fluorescence transduction mechanisms of reported molecules that probe redox changes. This is the first review on small-molecule fluorescent probes for intracellular redox change, and this account would provide a basis for designing available fluorescent probes and do a favor to those who are interested in this continually growing research field. (By Zhangrong Lou)