The inaugural meeting of the joint project between the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) for strategic research of energy chemistry focused on industry evolution was held on October 9th and 10th in the Conference Room of the Basic Energy Sciences Building in DICP. The meeting is also a strategy seminar for the "973 plan" on energy research during the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan". The meeting was hosted by the academician, Xinhe Bao, and invited the deputy director of NSFC, Wen Gao, the deputy director of the bureau for scientific frontiers and education, Min Huang, and the deputy director of DICP, Xueming Yang to give the opening speech. The attendees include the director of the policy bureau of NSFC, Yonghe Zheng, the deputy director of chemistry division of NSFC, Wenping Liang, the vice director of chemistry division of NSFC, Yongjun Chen, and the academician, Zhongqun Tian at the opening ceremony.
Over 40 experts and scholars in the field of energy research participates and Director Yonghe Zheng introduced the general requirements for strategic studies during the meeting. Prof. Xinhe Bao gave a talk on "Strategic Research of energy chemistry focused on industry evolution". Experts from the fields of hydrogen energy, life sciences, solar energy, biomass, large-scale energy storage and clean coal etc. reported on the "Thirteenth five-year plan" strategic research in their respective fields. All experts engaged in the in-depth discussion on the opportunities and challenges facing the development of energy chemistry, which lays the foundation for promoting the development of the energy sector to a higher level.(Text/Photo Xiumei Jiang)

The subject evaluation meeting of the National 973 program “Fundamental Research on Flow Batteries for Large-scale and High Efficient Energy Storage Applications”, carried mainly by the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP), was held in Dalian, Oct. 13th, 2014. The evaluation group was composed of 11 experts, including Academician Yusheng Yang (Research Institute of Chemical Defense), Academician Baolian Yi (DICP), Professor Yanping Sun (Taiyuan University of Technology), Professor Shigang Sun (Xiamen University), Professor Pucheng Pei (Tsinghua University), Professor Zifeng Ma (Shanghai JiaoTong University), etc.. The evaluation group, Weifeng Liu (Vice Director of Science and Technology Department in DICP) , 6 subject leaders along with the relating delegations attended the meeting, which was presided over by Professor Huamin Zhang, leader of the evaluation group and also project’s chief scientist.
Firstly, the subject leaders presented the experts some aspects of the targets completeness, the innovations and achievements, the talent cultivation and cooperation/exchange in their respective research. The evaluation group affirmed the achievements, and accepted the great progress made in the aspects of cost reduction, durability and reliability, and large-scale energy storage application of the flow battery system. They showed highly recognition that some innovation achievements, such as the porous ion conducting membrane, high performance stack and high power density flow batteries’ design and integration together with the new system of Zn-Ni flow battery, have reached international advanced level.
Based on the serious discussion, the evaluation groups were unanimous in approving that all the subjects passed the evaluation. For further understanding the scientific problems in the large-scale energy storage applications, and also keeping the international leading level of flow batteries, the evaluation group suggested that the government should continuously support the researchon flow batteries for large-scale and high efficient energy storage applications and make further efforts to promote the industrialization.(Text/Photo Huiying Liu )

In October 10th, Qingdao bright moon seaweed Group Limited company chairman Zhang Guofang, Professor Qin Yimin, vice president Li Kechang and director Wang Fahe visited DICP. Liu Zhongmin, director Cai Rui, deputy director of Department of biotechnology research fellow Ma Xiaojun met with the guests.
Director Cai Rui introduced the overall situation and cooperation mode to the moon group. Researcher Ma Xiaojun introduced the research progress in marine polysaccharide biomedical materials and medical product development to the guests. After the meeting, the guests visited the research of Biomedical Materials Engineering (1802) group
Qingdao bright moon seaweed Group Co Ltd is a comprehensive high-tech enterprises a seaweed processing, marine medicine, marine food, fine chemical and seaweed applied research in one run at the same time, thermal products. The company was founded in 1968, has 30 years of production history, is the largest and earliest Chinese establish comprehensive seaweed processing and utilization of base, one of the seaweed processing enterprises is the world famous. The representative products are series (alginate sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium), mannitol, sorbitol, sorbitol solution, iodine, seaweed fertilizer, propylene glycol alginate, seaweed, seaweed alginate hydrocolloid, feed etc.. Among them, the leading product of sodium alginate production scale ranks first in the world. (Photo/ Text Guojun Lv)

Recently, Professor Martin P Atkins and David Rooney from Queens University Belfast, the Group Technical Director John Bell from Williams Industrial Services Limited (WIS)，and Dr James McGreer from Innovative Technology Commercialization visited Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd (Rongke Power). After receiving the current development and industrialization of the vanadium flow battery (VFB) technology, the possibility of the bilateral collaboration and the European market exploitation on flow battery technology was discussed.
On Sep. 17th, the vice General Manager Wang Dong and Sales Director Zhang Yu in Rongke Power made a detailed introduction on the development and industrialization of VFB technology to the visitors. The achievements on VFB technology were highly praised. A deep discussion and communication on the operation status of the flow battery projects and the strategic layout of the flow battery technology at home and abroad were conducted. 
On Sep. 18th, the Head of Energy Storage Division at Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP), Professor Huamin Zhang, guided the visitors through the world largest 5MW/10MWh VFB energy storage system, which combined with a 50MWWoniushi wind farm. The overall design of the project, the battery system scale, and the operation mode were introduced in detail. The views on the application mode and the commercial environment of the VFB technology in the wind farm were exchanged. 
Professor Martin P Atkins hopes to push forward the cooperation between DICP/Rongke Power and Queens University Belfast on the energy storage technologies, at the same time, he would prefer to attract European investment in the field of renewable and promote the cooperation between some system integration companies and Rongke Power. (Text/Photo Huiying Liu)
 
 
 

The commissioning for pilot scale hollow fiber membrane contactor on CO2 removal from natural gas was successfully conducted in a gas process plant located at Malaysia east coast, which is jointly developed by Prof. Cao Group (DNL0905) of Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics CAS (DICP) and Malaysia Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas).
The system operated continuously and stably for 72 hours, the results indicated that all process parameters met the contract requirements. It is the world`s first system to purify the high pressure natural gas by hollow fiber membrane contactor. The unit adopted firstly the PTFE hollow fiber high-pressure membrane absorber jointly developed by DICP and Shanghai Bi Ke Clean Energy Technology Co., Ltd (“CECC”), the performance indicators of which also satisfied the contract requirements for the membrane development.     
The MBC system integrates the advantages of membrane separation technology and traditional adsorption process and is proved to be low energy consumption, high separation efficiency, high recovery rate of natural gas, compact device with small footprint, operation friendly, and other superior properties. The innovative technology can be used not only for acidic gas removal from natural gas (especially on offshore platform), but also for other areas like biogas purification and CO2 capture of flue gases.

Recently, the top international scientific journal "science" announced its own digital open access journal "Science Advances". This journal is acomprehensive scientific publication, which features important research across the entire range of scholarly pursuits including computer, engineering, environmental, life, mathematical, physical, and social sciences. This journal aims to provide a top publishing platform of scientific research, and rapidly publish high-quality research, focusing on work with the potential to make significant advances in any relevant field.The editor-in-chief of "Science", Marcia McNutt, is also the chief of "Science Advances". Academician Xueming Yang from Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, CAS,was invited to serve as the associate editor of this journal, and is responsible for editingmanuscripts submittedfrom physical chemistry, chemical physics, spectroscopy, dynamics, surface photocatalysis and other related areas.Since September 18th, "Science Advances"journal (http://scienceadvances.org/) began to acceptmanuscript submissions.

The associate editors have been selected from an international pool of candidates not only for their reputations in their own fields of research, but also for their acknowledged breadth in recognizing and promoting interdisciplinary collaborations. Xueming Yang mainly focuses on the area of experimental chemical dynamics and spectroscopy in the gas phase and at the interfaces.He has developed a new generation of crossed molecular beam instruments, and applied them to study important problems in chemical reaction dynamics. He has published more 300 scientific papers, including 10 in Science and 1 in Nature. In the recent years, he has received many prestigious research awards, for example, the Broida Prize of the International Symposium on Free Radicals, the Overseas Chinese Physics Association Achievement in Asia Award, and Humboldt Research Award. In 2006, he was elected to be a member of American Physical Society.
Xueming Yang has maintained close academic cooperation with manyinternational famous scientists. For example, he has invited professor Richard N. Zare (Stanford University) and David C. Clary (Oxford University)to visit our institute as the Einstein Professor of CAS, and invited professor F. Fleming Crim (University of Wisconsin-Madison) to visit us during our special forum for the 60th Anniversary Celebration of DICP,and invited professorDaniel M. Neumark (University of California-Berkeley) to give us the Zhang Dayu Lecture. He hasalsoset upa long-term cooperationwith professor Rex T. Skodje (University of Colorado) and Timothy K. Minton(Montana State University), who are the foreign visiting professors of CAS, and has published many papers, including 1 in Science and 3 in JACS. In addition, he has also cooperated with professor Alec M. Wodtke(University of California- Santa Barbara) andDavid H. Parker (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen) successfully applying to the “Partnership for International Research and Education for Electron Chemistry and Catalysis at Interfaces, PIRE-ECCI” and “KNAW-CAS joint research project-Imaging of Molecular Dynamics Processes driven by vacuum ultraviolet radiation”. This year, he even invited professor Daniel Auerbach, who is the international expert in surface chemical dynamics, to teach our phD students "surface dynamics" course. (By Lina Cheng)