The Materials Reality of China Scientists Are Discovering How to Fulfil Their Ambitions in a System That Is Rapidly Modernizing

A flexi-screen mobile phone is on display at an exhibition in Chengdu last year. The materials reality of China Scientists are discovering how to fulfil their ambitions in a system that is rapidly modernizing.

BY SARAH O’MEARA

y the time Dawei Zhang’s study visa to which China can develop new materials, The names are intended to draw comparisons the United States had been renewed, it known as the Materials Genome Engineering to biological superprogrammes such as the was too late. The 29-year-old materi- (MGE) project. Human Genome Project. In essence, China’s Bals scientist was back in China with his wife Such large-scale scientific ventures have policymakers want to make better use of the and son, ready to begin a postdoc at the Uni- become common in China over the past dec- information stored in the country’s databases versity of Science and Technology Beijing ade, forming key elements of the government’s about the behaviours of materials, so that new — one of the country’s leading materials plan to transform the country into a high-tech materials can be developed. institutes. The delay had prompted him to economy that can match, and eventually But the researchers are still at an early stage. accept a position in China, rather than pur- surpass, the world’s leading scientific nations. Zhang’s team struggles to understand the sue research on self-healing materials in the Launched in 2016, the MGE aimed to match methods of data scientists — a problem, he United States. the scope of the Materials Genome Initiative says, that is common across the world. Looking back, Zhang realizes that the in the United States, a “When we were preparing the proposals for unexpected move worked out well for him. NATURE.COM $250-million federal MGE, we were aware of this, but it wasn’t until

/VCG/GETTY DAILY CHENGDU ECONOMIC Six years later, his research into materi- More on China’s programme designed we started working on it that I realized this als corrosion has become part of a national materials scene to shepherd advanced would be a long-term issue.” 1-billion-yuan (US$150-million) programme go.nature.com/ materials science into The students in the laboratory often

WANG XIAO/ WANG to revolutionize the speed and efficiency with materialsinchina industrial applications. do better than the more experienced

SPOTLIGHT MATERIALS SCIENCE IN CHINA

professors, says Zhang. “They have time to 1.6 billion yuan for six special projects, which go off and study these new ideas in depth.” HARD DATA also covered nanotechnology. A final goal of the MGE, he says, is to China now publishes more high-impact develop a centralized, intelligent data-mining A history of materials research papers than any other country in software platform that can offer instant feed- 23 fields with clear technological applications, back to companies involved in, say, car manu- 1980s: Chinese universities and including batteries, semiconductors, new facturing, steel-making and shipbuilding, on research institutes develop 23 small- materials and biotechnology (see go.nature. how materials behave. scale materials databases with financial com/2xuboa9). And in November, a start-up At his lab at the Institute of Advanced support from the national government. called Qing Tao Energy Development, begun Materials and Technology in Beijing, Zhang They are used and updated infrequently. in 2014 by PhD graduates from Tsinghua works in a cross-disciplinary team, some of 2000: China launches two national, University, Beijing, announced that it had whose members focus on the MGE (see ‘Hard centralized materials databases developed the country’s first solid-state battery data’) while others do basic research. Data involving 18 research institutes. For the production line. scientists help him to process the information first time, data are collected and entered Yet, despite the country’s growing impact, in the databases to aid the creation of models in a standardized format (see http:// it’s not clear whether China’s scientists are for new materials, and biologists look at the www.materdata.cn). achieving as much as they could, given their influence of microorganisms on corrosion. His 2016: Policymakers invest in resources. John Plummer, a former senior institute also welcomes guest professors from developing databases and big-data editor for Nature Materials based in Shanghai, the United States and Europe. technology for China’s Materials who is now a senior portfolio editor at Nature It’s the kind of diverse, multidisciplinary Genome Engineering project, which Research, acknowledges that China is a leader community, Chinese scientists say, that is cru- echoes the Materials Genome Initiative in some areas of materials science — such as cial to doing great research but is often lacking launched by then-US president Barack nanomaterials, condensed-matter physics and in labs. “The goals of the Materials Genome Obama in 2011. structural materials. But it does not yet com- Initiative in the States and in China are the pare to the United States or Europe in terms of same: to produce better materials more quickly materials research overall, he says. that cost less. It’s very important we collaborate 2015 was in materials science. Jia Zhu, a nanomaterials scientist at Nanjing with overseas scientists because the materials Since 2006, China’s scientific research and University, says: “We need to do more to pro- genome is a new topic. We need to figure out development (R&D) funding has been guided mote original ideas. In the US, when they start the best path together,” says Zhang. by a national plan to improve the country’s a new programme or research, they won’t look level of innovation by 2020. The plan includes at other people and say, ‘They’re doing that, so A CLEAR FUNDING PLAN the realization of ambitious research and we should do that.’ In China, we still do that.” Funding for materials science in China has development projects, such as Moon explo- quadrupled since 2008, and the field receives ration and the development of China’s first TIME TO TAKE A RISK? the second highest level of funding from domestically designed passenger aircraft. In 2014, geophysicist Ho-Kwang Mao began the National Natural Science Foundation These goals are designed to spur technologi- splitting his time between the Carnegie Insti- of China (NSFC), behind only medical sci- cal breakthroughs and improve the country’s tution in Washington DC and Shanghai. After ences (see ‘China’s funding boost for materi- economic prospects, and materials science is more than 50 years working in the United als’). The volume of China’s materials-science crucial to their success. States, he was hoping to help Chinese officials research has grown correspondingly. Accord- In 2018, the NSFC pumped more than solve one of the country’s most pressing R&D ing to data from the Web of Science, the num- 2 billion yuan into 701 projects, including problems. “They asked me: ‘What can we do ber of papers on the topic more than tripled the MGE and work on nanotechnology and to improve fundamental research in terms of between 2006 and 2017, to around 40,000 (see advanced electronic materials. In the same quality, not just quantity?’” ‘Big progress’), and around one in every nine year, the Ministry of Science and Technol- The scientist, who was born in Shanghai, papers published by a Chinese researcher in ogy announced total funding of more than studies how materials respond to extreme

CHINA’S FUNDING BOOST FOR MATERIALS BIG PROGRESS Engineering and materials science have received, on average, the second highest China’s output of materials-science papers far outstrips that of the level of funding from China’s National Natural Science Foundation since 2001. United States, but international collaborations are relatively sparce.

2.5 China 10

United States 2.0 8

1.5 6 China responds to the global nancial 2017 1.0 crisis by increasing Yuan (billions) Yuan 4 research funding. 2012

2007 0.5 2 2002

0.0 0 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 (thousands) with an international collaborator Papers 0 10 20 30 40 Total number of papers (thousands) SOURCE: WEB OF SCIENCE SOURCE; NATIONAL NATURAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION OF CHINA SCIENCE FOUNDATION NATURAL SOURCE; NATIONAL

MATERIALS SCIENCE IN CHINA SPOTLIGHT

pressure, and told officials that they should give him the money to start a lab to produce “truly transformative research”. He explained that there would probably be no immediate breakthroughs. His only guarantee was that he would attract scientists from all over the

STEFEN CHOW FOR NATURE FOR CHOW STEFEN world who had the same potential for pro- ductivity that he himself has demonstrated: during his career, Mao has had 65 papers published in Nature and Science. “Give me the money and I’ll give you the scientists,” he said in 2008, at an event held by the NSFC and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the largest scientific organization in the country and a policy adviser to the government; Mao was made a member in 1996. The officials gave him the money — and in 2013, the Center for High Pres- sure Science and Technology Advanced Research (HPSTAR) was established, with branches in Shanghai and Beijing. Mao’s labs are not funded through the usual cen- Q&A tral bodies, such as the Ministry of Science and Technology, but directly by the Ministry of Finance. Mao says that he has attracted staff Printing pioneer scientists from countries including Canada, Egypt, Germany, Japan, Russia, the United Chemist Yanlin Song uses nanomaterials to reduce the pollution caused by conventional Kingdom and the United States. “In China, printing processes. Nature speaks to him about his work at the Chinese Academy of Sciences the system was not very effective for support Institute of Chemistry in Beijing and why it matters to China. of fundamental research. I was allowed to try a new system that gives scientists total free- How does your technology work? droplets only 10 micrometres in diameter or dom to pursue transformative science in their The printing industry uses a high volume of larger. This makes it difficult to print at smaller own way with minimal supervision, reviews chemicals and produces a lot of waste. These scales, which in turn limits our ability to pro- and evaluations. Of course, the government can be hazardous for the environment. We have duce complex electronic circuits for chips and is keeping an eye on how we progress, but created a coating, using nanomaterials, to elim- smart textiles such as wearable sensors. it’s low-key.” inate the need to chemically treat the printing Mao’s radical approach to funding plates that are used to transfer a design to paper. How is your research being applied? removed one of the major structural barriers I’m working with four companies on different that inhibit innovative materials research. In What results have you had? applications. There are two main obstacles: fab- China, scientists’ funding prospects depend We’ve developed a range of green printing ricating products on a large scale while main- largely on how many papers they have pub- applications, from plate-making and elec- taining quality, and persuading people to buy lished in high-impact journals, says Zhenhai tronic printing technology to green printing them. Customers tend to want the most cost- Wen, a CAS chemist who researches methods processes for packaging and 3D printing. Our effective product rather than the most high- of energy storage at the Fujian Institute work has been included in China’s road map tech version. This is a challenge for researchers. of Research on the Structure of Matter in for developing the printing industry, and some So far, our green printing-plate technology has Fuzhou. “Junior researchers must survive the universities, such as the Beijing Institute for been used by China’s national news agency and intense competition for funding, so we have Graphic Communication, have developed a our electronic printing processes have been to pursue hot topics of research, even though curriculum around our research. used to produce transport tickets in Beijing that means our work might not be innovative and Hong Kong. and [might] overlap with others’.” Who funds your lab? Mao is convinced that scientists perform My funding mainly comes from the Ministry of What are you currently working on? better without restrictions — and the Science and Technology, the Chinese Academy We’re developing 3D inks that can be printed opportunity to do just that was partly why of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foun- directly on paper to create braille text. Con- physicist Philip Dalladay-Simpson applied dation of China and the Beijing Municipal ventional mechanical processes for printing for a position as a postdoc with the Shanghai Government. I also receive financial support books in braille are specialized and expensive lab, to study the response of molecular from companies such as Procter & Gamble and and the books don’t last long as the embossed systems to very high pressures. He graduated Samsung. Last year, my lab received US$3 mil- dots become flattened by touch. These fac- from Queen Mary University of London lion in total. tors have led to an extremely limited number in 2010, and finished his PhD — on how of braille books in our country. My friend has hydrogen responds to extreme environ- What research obstacles are you facing? children who are blind and I’ve been think- ments — at the University of Edinburgh, UK, There are still many fundamental problems ing about the problem for a long time. We in 2016, just as HPSTAR was undertaking a that need to be solved for green printing tech- hope our process will greatly lower the print- recruitment drive. nology. Most of the challenges have to do ing costs and improve the printing quality. ■ “This was a chance to align myself with a with the way in which liquids behave at very new and ambitious research institute, where small scales. For example, the nozzles used INTERVIEW BY SARAH O’MEARA I could have the freedom to research my in conventional inkjet printing can produce This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

SPOTLIGHT MATERIALS SCIENCE IN CHINA

personal interests. It felt daunting as it their country’s developers, says Xingyu Jiang, with businesses and invited to meetings with wasn’t something I had ever envisioned for a chemist at the Southern University of Science local government officials, to discuss the my career,” Dalladay-Simpson says. and Technology in Shenzhen. commercial applications of his research into Mao’s team can take advantage of one of “If you have a high output in fundamental the development of batteries and fuel cells. China’s growing list of large-scale research research, there’s an expectation that you’ll have They have offered to support a start-up projects — the 1.2-billion-yuan Shanghai an equally high level of products. That’s how venture, or smooth the way for collaboration Synchrotron Radiation Facility, which opened many officials and private funders think. But with a local company. But Wen is wary of pitfalls. in 2009. Here, HPSTAR scientists use X-rays a lot of products that we use today are based “Starting a company is easily accomplished. I’ve to learn more about how materials react under on research done 20 or 30 years ago,” he says. seen many companies fail due to inexperience pressure. “Our team use the facility monthly, “In China, we have fewer large companies who in large-scale production, poor management at least, so we rented lab space next door,” will make the necessary investment in R&D to and a lack of a market for the products.” says Mao. push products to market.” The government has introduced incentives to encourage scientists to start businesses, THE PRESSURE TO PERFORM such as financial stakes in spin-off companies For engineer Guang Chen, China’s ambition to and time away from their lab to develop the become a global leader in science and technol- “WHAT CAN WE DO TO technology, but the environment is still tough. ogy by 2049, the centenary of the founding of Wen thinks that more should be done to the People’s Republic, is a daily pressure. IMPROVE increase understanding between research The country wants to manufacture its own FUNDAMENTAL teams and manufacturing companies: “The aircraft from scratch: at present, commer- development of new materials in the lab often cial planes made by Chinese companies use RESEARCH takes insufficient account of market demand, imported engines. So, when Chen, who works IN TERMS OF making it difficult to get financial support at Nanjing University of Science and Technol- from companies,” he says. ogy, published a paper in 2016 about a new alloy that could be used in the manufacture of QUALITY, NANOMATERIALS GET BIG jet engines (G. Chen et al. Nature Mater. 15, NOT JUST When the scientists who developed graphene 876–881; 2016), his funding rocketed. at the University of Manchester, UK, won the In 2017, Chen was promised key funding QUANTITY?” Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010, their creation worth 3 million yuan, five times the value was widely expected to revolutionize electron- of the general grants usually awarded by the ics. The ultra-light, flexible, strong and highly NSFC. In addition, he received two of these For scientists in China, moving bench conductive nanomaterial has not yet lived up 600,000-yuan grants. Although he is pleased research towards a high-tech production line to expectations — but, if it does, China intends to have the support he needs, he knows there is not straightforward. Neither government to be perfectly placed to take advantage. will be consequences if he sees no results by nor business is hugely experienced in com- China recognized the contribution that the time his funding runs out. “It will hurt my mercializing technology, and researchers nanoscience discoveries could make to its own scientific reputation and applications for later struggle to meet high expectations without the scientific, technological and economic devel- programmes,” he says. infrastructure and expertise to support them. opment early on. In 2003, the CAS and the Chen has been working in this area for Wen came back to China in 2014 after Ministry of Education established the National more than 20 years, and speculates that com- doing postdoctoral research at the University Center for Nanoscience and Technology, and mercialization could take another 10. But that’s of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in electrochem- the country now has the highest number of not the kind of speed that the Chinese govern- ical-energy conversion and storage. Since graphene businesses in the world — nearly ment or industries have come to expect from returning, he’s been encouraged to cooperate 3,000, according to government figures. The country also accounts for around two-thirds of global production. But there’s a problem: almost all these producers are small or medium-sized com-

panies that will lack funding in the long term XINHUA/ALAMY unless they find a sustainable business model, says chemist Xiaoyue Xiao. In 2013, Xiao and Yichun Li, a materials engineer now at the China International Technology Transfer Center in Beijing, came up with the idea of forming an organization to enable these companies to work together and grow. “The good thing was there were lots of small companies working on graphene or graphene-related technologies. The bad thing was that quite a few of them couldn’t keep going,” Xiao says. In the same year, Xiao and Li founded the China Innovation Alliance of the Graphene Industry (CGIA) to bring together universities, institutes and companies in an attempt to improve the situation. “Investors were putting in lots of money, but then quickly An engineer debugs an instrument at the China Spallation Neutron Source in Dongguan; scientists use became frustrated because companies were accelerators such as this and the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility to study materials’ behaviour. struggling to develop applications they could

MATERIALS SCIENCE IN CHINA SPOTLIGHT

sell,” says Xiao. Ou Mao works at Cnano Technology, a company with corporate headquarters in Q&A Santa Clara, California, that mass-produces carbon nanotubes and graphene using tech- niques developed by chemical engineers STEFEN CHOW FOR NATURE FOR CHOW STEFEN at Tsinghua University in 2001. The com- Pressure pany now has an annual revenue of more than $50 million. Mao has more than 20 years’ experience in industrial R&D, and chemist says that the team has focused on ensuring that its products suit the market: “We know that carbon nanotubes have many potential Chemist Haiyan Zheng works for the Center applications across all industries, but it may for High Pressure Science and Technology take many years for industries to accept these Advanced Research (ÎHPSTAR) in Beijing. novel materials, both in terms of technology Nature talks to her about her work at the and regulations. So we have to be smart and institute and about equality in science in selective in choosing our target market and China. applications.” The CGIA put together a database of How did you come to work at HPSTAR? graphene-related projects, categorized by After completing my PhD in organic their development stage: lab, pilot or com- chemistry at the Chinese Academy of mercialization. Projects at each stage receive Sciences Institute of Chemistry in Beijing, a different type of support. Lab projects are I moved to Rice University in Houston, that will be compressed under high pressure tracked and given an incubator when ready; Texas, to study carbon nanomaterials for and produce the desired product. That’s our at the pilot stage, the CGIA helps to find the purposes of drug delivery. At the same dream. investment; and at the commercialization time, my husband was doing his postdoc stage, it invites project teams to present their at the Carnegie Institution for Science in What are the obstacles for Chinese women in work in front of potential investors and gov- Washington DC under Ho-Kwang Mao, science? ernment representatives. The alliance has an who founded HPSTAR. He introduced Your early thirties are a very important time annual operating budget of 8 million yuan. me to his research. The following year, I for the development of your career, but it’s also Xiao points to advances in areas such as joined Mao’s group as a postdoc and began the time when women have children. This can flexible display screens as examples of suc- learning about high-pressure technology, cause difficulty, because women can’t focus cessful product development: “We have three and in 2014 came to work at HPSTAR as a all their energy on work. I’m very lucky. My members — Chongqing Graphene Technol- staff scientist. husband works in the same institute, so that ogy, Wuxi Electronics and Instruments, helps us to balance our family and work lives and 2D Carbon Tech — all with the ability Why did you change your research field? more efficiently. We can discuss our work at to industrially produce graphene flexible High-pressure chemistry is an unexplored any time. Our parents also help us a lot with screens, and are negotiating cooperations area of research, which I really feel needs to the care of our four-year-old son. with well-known Chinese electrical appliance be investigated. It’s an amazing opportunity manufacturers.” for a researcher. Changing my field also meant What does a female scientist need to The next stage for the CGIA is to tackle a chance to work near my husband, which was succeed? one of the industry’s biggest problems — good for our home life. To be a successful women in science, you which, as Xiao puts it, is that “the quality of need three things: self-motivation, equal graphene products is totally uncontrolla- What are you working on? opportunities at work and family support. ble”. In 2016, he therefore helped to launch Everyone at HPSTAR works on different areas You also need to have a work environment the China International Graphene Industry of high-pressure science and technology. My that supports you, and people to help you Union, which is developing the country’s first job is to better understand how basic organic with family life. set of standards. He is also discussing how to chemicals react under extreme conditions, reduce technical barriers to trade and joint including high pressure and high tempera- Do women in science receive additional R&D with international teams such as the tures. In theory, this research could lead to the support in China? International Electrotechnical Commission creation of compounds or carbon structures The government tries its best to support in São Paulo, Brazil. with new properties. women in science. In 2011, the National Nat- “Right now we are working on setting up ural Science Foundation of China committee an international standardization evaluation How much has your scientific focus changed? increased the age limit for women applying committee. I think this will help us to speed I still focus on chemistry, just using a different to its Young Scientist Fund from 35 to 40. In up the technology transfer from lab to indus- tool. I would now describe my work as physi- the past, everyone had to apply before they try,” Xiao says. What China’s materials science cal chemistry. At HPSTAR, we have chemists, reached 36. That’s hard for women because of needs now, he adds, is exposure to the rest of physicists and materials scientists all working their responsibility for children around that the world’s scientists. “We need to work on together to better understand the relationship time. After the age limit increased, the num- this together as a global group. You cannot between the structure of materials and their ber of successful applications from women just close your door to working on something. properties. increased by ten percentage points. I think People need to know what you’re doing.” ■ that it has been a great help for women in What is the goal of your work? their careers. ■ Sarah O’Meara is a freelance science writer My team and I would like to understand pre- in London. Additional research by Kevin cisely how chemical reactions happen under INTERVIEW BY SARAH O’MEARA Schoenmakers. extreme conditions, then design molecules This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

CORRECTION The Spotlight article ‘The materials reality of China’ (Nature 567, S1–S4; 2019) made several mistakes. Ho-Kwang Mao was born in Shanghai, not Taiwan. Guang Chen is at Nanjing University of Science and Technology, not Nanjing University. And Zhenhai Wen did his postdoctoral research at the Milwaukee campus of the University of Wisconsin, not the Madison one.