Prof. Jingguang Chen from Columbia University (USA) was invited to visit Dalian Institute of Chemistry and Physics (DICP) by Prof. Tao Zhang on 9th July. In the morning of 9th July, Prof. Spring presented a lecture with the title of “Design of Catalysts and Electrocatalysts for Energy Applications”, in the BES building of DICP. The lecture was chaired by Prof. Tao Zhang, who also on behalf of CAS awarded Prof. Jingguang Chen a certificate of "Chinese academy of sciences visiting professorship for senior international scientists”. With over 100 researchers participate.
In his lecture, Prof. Schick introduced their DFT Calculations for Solid、Surface Science、Design and synthesis of catalysts and Application in the field of energy. After the report, he had further discussion with related researchers.
 
Jingguang Chen is the Thayer Lindsley Professor of chemical engineering at Columbia University. He received his BS degree in chemistry from Nanjing University and was selected to study in the USA in the China-USA Chemistry Graduate Program (CGP). He received his PhD degree from the University of Pittsburgh, followed by a Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship in Germany. After spending several years as a staff scientist at Exxon Corporate Research he started his academic career at the University of Delaware, serving as the director of the Center for Catalytic Science and Technology and the Claire LeClaire Professor of chemical engineering. He moved to Columbia University in 2012. He has been elected for several leadership positions in the catalysis societies, including the Chair of the Gordon Conference on Catalysis, the director-at-large of the North American Catalysis Society, and the Chair of the Catalysis Division in the American Chemical Society. He has co-authored20 United Statespatents and 280 journal articles that have been cited over 9,000 times.（Text by Fei Liu/Photo by Hui Sun）
 

Ultra-pure hydrogen is widely used in many fields such as electronic information, semiconductor, LED, polycrystalline silicon photovoltaic power generation, etc. Recently, a technology demonstration, with a 30 m3/h of hydrogen operational capacity, on ultra-pure hydrogen purification has been successfully carried out. It is developed by DNL1902 group by using the high-performance metal palladium composite membrane materials. It indicates that China has mastered the most advanced purification technology of ultra-pure hydrogen, and this technology demonstration will significantly reduce the device investment and production costs. 
As a 91.8 % of hydrogen recovery, a 99.9999996 % of ultra-purity hydrogen (with a 4.3 ppb of nitrogen and undetectable CO2 impurity) could be produced from 99.99956 % of raw hydrogen (with a 3.81 ppm of nitrogen and a 0.60 ppm of carbon dioxide impurity). There is no detectable N2-and CO2 impurity being found in the ultra-pure hydrogen products during 125 hours continuous operation of stability investigation. 
This technology demonstration is one of the main targets of 863 project “Ultra- pure hydrogen separation membrane materials and thetechnology of large-scale preparation”, and its successful operation was powerfully supported by Zhejiang Haitian-Gas Company.(Text by XU Hengyong/Photo by HOU Shoufu) 
   

 Sponsored by the fund of “Visiting Professorship for Senior International Scientists of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)”, Prof. David R. Spring from University of Cambridge was invited to visit Dalian Institute of Chemistry and Physics (DICP) by the group leader of 18T2 Prof. XU Zhaochao on 24th June. In the afternoon of 24th June, Prof. Spring presented a lecture with the title of “Enriching Chemical Space to Drug Undruggable Targets”. 
On 25th June, as an honored guest, Prof. Spring attended the Academic Salon for postdocs and students to discuss “Research-Life-Study Abroad”. 
On 27th, Prof Spring visited to Dalian University of Technology and presented a lecture in State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals. 
Currently, David R. Spring is a professor in the Chemistry Department and a Fellow of Trinity College, University of Cambridge. He is interest in making small molecules by using organic synthesis, which can be utilized to understand and exploit biological systems. (Text by LANG Haijing/ Photo by YIN Wenting) 
    
Contact: Prof. XU Zhaochao 
Email: zcxu@dicp.ac.cn 
 

As a major coke producer, China accounts for about 60% of the production capacity of the world. The whole coking process contributes a majority of the atmospheric pollutants such as NOx, SOx, carbon granule etc. because of the combustion nature of coke gas. Recently, a new national standard named ‘Emission standard of pollutants for coking chemical industry’ was issued by the National Ministry of Environmental Protection, which stipulated anupper emission limit for NOx, SOx and so on. As the biggest coke producer in the west of China, Baofeng Energy Ltd processes 8 coke ovens and a production capacity of 5 million tons of coke every year. The concentration of NOx in tail gas of all the 8 coke ovens is between 900~1200 mg/m3, which is obvious out of the national limit (less than500 mg/m3). A technical agreement was signed between Baofeng Energy Ltd and DICP for the purchase of a proper way to remove NOx economically. 
Efficient low temperature SCR catalyst, which can not only accommodate the relative low temperature (typically below 300oC), but also can resist the deactivation of SOx and coal tar, has been a hot area of research for years.Based on theoretical and practical experience, group DNL0909 developed a novel SCR catalyst with a honeycomb monolithic configuration. At 4th April 2014, an industrial pilot SCR system was commissioned and an instantoperation success was achieved at Baofeng Energy Ltd, Yinchuan, Ningxia province. This efficient SCR catalyst showed a very high and stable NOx reduction efficiency with 98~99% during 1200 hours running and the concentration of NOx in effluent maintained less than20 mg/m3. 
The excellentexperimental result proved the feasibility and validity of SCR process for coke oven by using our novel monolithic catalyst. （By Hao Cheng） 

 
 

The 7th Tokyo Conference on Advanced Catalytic Science and Technology (TOCAT7) was held in Kyoto, Japan on June 1 to 6, 2014. The TOCAT series conference is an important international meeting in the Asia-Pacific region which has been held every four years since 1990. Over 900 participants from 35 countries and regions attended this conference. The TOCAT covers all aspects of catalysis including development of new catalysts, reaction systems, and catalyst characterization. There are 8 plenary lectures, 24 invited lectures, 179 oral presentations and 635 posters issuing in this conference. More than 15 participants from DICP attended this conference and showed the latest progress in the field of catalysis by oral presentations and posters. Prof. Can Li gave a plenary lecture with title of “Fundamental understanding of photocatalysis and photoelectrocatalysis for solar fuel production”, and Prof. Zhongmin Liu gave an invited lecture titled as “Methanol-to-Olefins: from fundamental study to commercialization”. Xiaomin Zhang won the best poster award. 
Especially, the TOCAT conference has a strong purpose to fill the gap between scientific research and application. The conference definitely provides good opportunities for presentations and discussions about recent advances in catalytic science and technology. (By ZHANG Xiaomin) 

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is an ideal approach for renewable solar fuel production. However, trade-offs between light-harvesting and photochemical stability of photoelectrodes have greatly limited the development of solar water splitting technology. Tantalum nitride (Ta3N5) has a theoretical solar to hydrogen conversion efficiency of 15.9%, but it is not stable in the highly oxidative environment of water oxidation. 
The DICP & DNL research team led by Prof. LI Can has recently designed and achieved a hole-storage layer modified tantalum nitride photoanode system for highly stable solar water splitting. Their results were recently published as a communication in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (DOI:10.1002/anie.201404697). 
The team demonstrated that photoelectrochemical water oxidation on a ferrihydrite layer modified tantalum nitride photoanode can be sustained for several hours, which is the most durable tantalum nitride based electrode reported to date. The role of ferrihydrite was investigated as a hole-storage layer, increasing the hole-storage capacity and suppressing photocorrosion of tantalum nitride electrode. These findings provide a new avenue for developing efficient and stable solar water splitting devices. 
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China. (By LIU Guiji & SHI Jingying) 

Contact: Prof. LI Can
Email: canli@dicp.ac.cn