Master of Catalysts
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Professor Lin Liwu has made great contributions to China’s national defense. In the 1950s and 1960s, he invented catalysts which made China’s jet fuel possible. He made catalysts for Shenzhou spacecraft in the new century. Under his tutelage more than 40 students have acquired doctoral degrees in physical chemistry. He now is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in UK.
Lin Liwu was born in 1929 in Shantou in southern China’s Guangdong Province. In 1949 he was enrolled into the chemistry department of Zhejiang University, a flagship in Zhejiang Province. Wishing to make contributions to the New China, he studied hard and completed the four-year study in three years and graduated in 1952. Lin in his early twenties came to Dalian Industrial Chemistry Research Institute under China Academy of Sciences. He worked hard and soon cut a brilliant figure at the institute.
In the early years of the People’s Republic, China was able to make about 100,000 tons of oil a year, accounting for 10% of the quantity actually used in the country. The country imported 90% of the oil from USSR. When the tie between USSR and China turned sour and the “big brother” cut down on oil export to China, the People’s Republic faced sharp shortage of oil. The Chinese air forces couldn’t train normally without appropriate jet fuel. The national leadership decided to produce aviation kerosene. Lin was engaged in the first important research project of his lifetime. He was to find a way to make liquid fuel through an artificial way. Artificially synthesized kerosene was invented during the Second World War in Germany. But this process was complicated, costly and dangerous. In this process, 200 to 300 units of atmospheric pressure must be applied to coal or coal tar to produce kerosene.
As China at that time did not have a solid industrial infrastructure to mass produce synthetic kerosene by using the German approach, Lin Liwu decided to find a new way. He finally came up with the idea of producing an improved catalyst that would make it possible to get kerosene under 70 units of atmospheric pressure, a procedure that some experts had previously thought the idea utterly ludicrous and impossible.
Under the leadership of the veteran scientist He Xuelun, Lin and his colleagues tested their thoughts and sought breakthroughs by means of experiments. Finally they successfully made it. This technological breakthrough enabled the Chinese air forces to fly normally.
The 30-year-old Lin established his reputation as a go-to guy for catalysts. After Daqing Oil Field began to produce crude oil regularly, Lin was put in charge of a new project to produce aviation kerosene from the crude oil of Daqing. Lin Liwu and Zhang Fuliang headed a work group to crack the problem. The group worked side by side with another group of scientists. In less than two years, they invented China’s first-generation hydro-iso-cracking catalyst. The new process became the core technology for a 300,000-ton hydro-iso-cracking unit at Daqing. Lin was appointed as a major leader of the project. On New Year’s Day of 1967, the unit became operational and began to produce high-quality low-freezing aviation kerosene, which was badly needed in China. This new product put an end to the shortage of this sort of kerosene. The invention later won a top national science award.
Shortly after the success of the kerosene production facility at Daqing, Lin was appointed to work on a catalyst for hydrazine decomposition for country’s airspace project. This catalyst is a key factor in accurately controlling the orbit and flight of a spacecraft. This catalyst also plays a key role in accurately controlling the flight of a re-entry module.
The work was painstaking literarily. In the early stage of their research, Lin and his colleagues conducted experiments in deafening noise that would nauseate researchers. Moreover, hydrazine and other chemicals were easy to explode. But they finally made it. China’s first spacecraft Shenzhou V used this catalyst, which was launched on October 15, 2003.
The research group has now expanded into Space Catalysts and New Material Research Department headed by Professor Lin Liwu.
Over the past decades, Lin has won numerous top awards. In 1979, he was elected a national model worker. In 1993, he was elected academician of China Academy of Sciences. His research results have won 21 awards at national and ministerial level. In 2009, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in UK.
In his 80s now, Professor Lin still works, though he is already retired. He participates in key discussions frequently and gives lectures to graduates and post doctoral students. His life is totally dedicated to catalysts.