Personal profile ‘I have always year he chaired a consortium to investigate sustainability in the closely followed chemical sciences, sponsored by scientific the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Chemistry Division. advancement His interest in sustainability Fuelling is driven by environmental worldwide’ damage, rather than by the threat of limited oil reserves. Likewise, his main driving force for biodiesel development is to stem environmental damage, rather than find alternatives to crude oil. China’s future However, with dwindling reserves Enze helped to kickstart China’s industrial boom. and rising oil prices, biodiesel could become economically as well as Fifty years on, his research focuses on tackling the environmentally viable. ‘A fortuitous benefit of rising oil prices … a shot environmental damage of development, reports Bea Perks in the arm for green chemistry,’ says Min.

Young ambition Min was born in Szechuan Province, where the main industry in the 1920s was agriculture. He didn’t start off wanting to be a chemist but started studying civil engineering at China’s National Central University. ‘I wanted to build a bridge across the Yangtze River in memory of my mother,’ he recalls. (Min’s mother died when he was at middle school.) But his mother’s brother, a banker, The story of a young boy in civil war, to university during the didn’t think much of the bridge idea. south-western China in the In short second world war, and completed He wanted his nephew to become 1920s who went on to become  Min Enze was studying a PhD in the US, during which an industrialist, so in 1943 Min one of the country’s leading for a PhD in the US when time his homeland became a switched to chemical engineering, chemical engineers reflects the his homeland became communist state. On returning to an unusual degree choice at the time, extraordinary political, cultural and the People’s Republic of China, Min took on the Herculean he says. With Szechuan’s reliance on economic progression of a country China. task of keeping pace with the agriculture, Min – who clearly had widely tipped as the next global  He had been working world’s refining industry despite grand aspirations from an early age superpower. at the ministry of stifling trade restrictions. Refining – shelved his plans for a bridge and Min Enze, now a highly regarded petroleum’s research technology had to be developed from decided to build a fertiliser factory. senior member of the Chinese institute in for scratch, since much of the outside When he graduated in 1946, Academy of Sciences and senior three years before the world would have nothing to do with there were no jobs for chemists consultant at the Research country’s biggest oil field this new state. in his home town of and Institute of Petroleum Processing was discovered in 1959. chemistry graduates were expected in Beijing, was born in February  He is a senior member Going green to become school teachers. It’s 1924, at the dawn of the Chinese of the Chinese Academy It’s a very different story today very different now; the city is a civil war (which was to rage on until of Sciences and a – China is now the third largest key manufacturing centre for 1950 with the birth of the People’s member of the Chinese trading partner of the US and, in the pharmaceutical, chemical, Republic of China). Academy of Engineering terms of nominal GDP, the fourth metallurgy and food processing He went to school during the  From 1996-2004 largest economy in the world. But industries. professor Min was such a meteoric rise comes at a chairman of the price, and China is now counting the Chemical progress academic committee at environmental costs. According to Leading Chinese medicinal MIN ENZE MIN the Sinopec Research the World Bank, Chinese cities make chemistry contract researcher Institute of Petroleum up 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted. ChemPartner has opened a facility Processing (RIPP) The World Health Organization in the city, citing the importance estimates that up to 17 per cent of of nearby universities. And deaths in the country are linked to construction of a $12 million environmental health risks. (£6 million) facility to house the Min’s research focus is firmly on city’s Institute for nanobiomedical green chemistry, and particularly technology & membrane biology on biodiesel production. ‘I have is about to start, in association always closely followed scientific with Shuguang Zhang, associate Min Enze as a PhD advancement worldwide, and director of the Center for Biomedical student at Ohio State became interested in green Engineering at Massachusetts

University, US, in 1948 chemistry in 1995,’ he says. In that 83 years and counting Institute of Technology, US. ENZE MIN 52 | Chemistry World | April 2007 www.chemistryworld.org www.chemistryworld.org Chemistry World | April 2007 | 53 Personal profile

German chemical giant BASF also as, effectively, prisoners of war. has an office in Chengdu. BASF is Finally, the US agreed to release MIN ENZE MIN a striking example of the potential them in return for US prisoners that overseas investors see in China: of war being held by the Chinese it employs over 4000 people in the following the Korean War (1950–53). country, operating 16 wholly owned In 1955 Min and Lu went home, companies, seven joint ventures and although more than 90 per cent 14 production sites. of their 1000 or so fellow students had chosen to stay. Whereas the Cleaning up US had feared Chinese students Min was lucky. After he graduated, would steal all their best ideas, the his influential uncle got him a new returnees found that Chinese position as an apprentice at a soap institutions were sometimes factory in Chongqing (at that time a reluctant to hire staff who’d just city in Szechuan province and now arrived from the US and might be a provincial-level municipality in spying for their new friends in the its own right). Perhaps his uncle West, and in the beginning jobs were had been looking into a crystal ball hard to come by. again: what Min learnt at the soap factory has been very helpful with Petroleum processing his biodiesel work, he says. In 1956 Min and Lu found positions While Min was at the soap factory, at the Ministry of Petroleum’s newly a project was set up in Shanghai established research institute in to train chemical engineers for Beijing, which later became Sinopec the dyeing and printing industry. RIPP. The institute was built on what Students were tempted with the had been farmland, and was founded promise of foreign travel. ‘This was before China had discovered crude a very attractive opportunity,’ he oil – the fuel source at that time was remembers. Min left the soap factory oil shale and coal. for a textile dyeing and printing ‘Fortunately, in 1959 China factory in Shanghai, where he met discovered Daqing, the biggest up again with a former university oil field in the country,’ says Min. classmate, Lu Wanzhen, who was ‘That provided the opportunity for later to become his wife and a very research. We wanted to build our successful chemist in her own right. every effort to stay in the US. But World’s first commercial own refinery.’ The boom in Chinese that wasn’t for Min and Lu. They magnetically stabilised chemistry really started with the Foreign shores would have bucked the trend and bed unit for purification discovery of Daqing, says Min. ‘Once After the second world war the returned to China, to get married of caprolactam China had that resource it took off, Chinese government planned to and launch their careers, were it not so now there is a refining plant in send 1000 students to the US. In fact, for international politics. virtually every province in China.’ the students had to provide the cost of travel, tuition and living expenses Political upheaval Crude oil lights the touch paper themselves; the government’s only After the founding of the People’s With the discovery of Daqing, Min contribution was to exchange the Republic of China in 1949, the US was instrumental in developing funds into foreign currency, which refused to let its Chinese students major refining technologies needed was in very short supply at that time. leave – unwilling to let them take the by industry. Fortunately Min was able to arrange skills and knowledge they’d picked He is widely respected for having a bank loan which got him a passage up back to what was now communist laid the technical foundation of to the US and living expenses. China. petroleum refining catalysts in (The loan was easy to repay, he So Min and Lu were trapped. They China. He developed cracking says, because massive inflation had married in the US in 1950 and both catalysts, including spherical turned the loan into peanuts.) graduated with PhDs from Ohio aluminium silicate catalysts for So in 1947 the young man set State University the following year. aviation fuel, and micro-spherical sail for the US and began a masters Chinese nationals were no longer Si–Al catalysts for the production degree at Ohio State University’s permitted student visas in the US, so of petrol, diesel and liquefied department of chemical engineering, the young couple had to find work. petroleum gases. which then progressed to a PhD. Min worked for a chemical company In the 1960s, he developed The year before he left China, Lu in Chicago for four years, where spherical Si–Al cracking catalysts Wanzhen had also left for the US. he investigated ways to prevent for a moving bed reactor. These She was studying at the University of corrosion and deal with the problem provided a superior alternative to Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by the of ash deposits in boilers. He says the imported Russian catalyst relied time he arrived. that this industrial experience on at the time and halved the price of So there they were, two nationally was invaluable, and not something ‘In 1959, China catalysis. acclaimed young chemical engineers he could have picked up in a US Later, Min developed enjoying the opportunity of a university or in China at the time. discovered microspherical Si–Al catalysts lifetime – working alongside their Daqing, the for a fluidised bed reactor, internationally acclaimed peers ‘Prisoners of war’? incorporating the novel step of in the US. Most of their fellow Min and Lu might still be in the US, biggest oil field drying followed by gelation, which Chinese academic superstars made were it not for their reclassification in the country’ enabled a continuous production 54 | Chemistry World | April 2007 www.chemistryworld.org

CW.04.07.MIN.indd 54 22/03/2007 09:32:42 process. At the same time he solved RIPP, called for directed basic ‘You don’t reactor produces 70 000 tonnes key problems with particle size research and drew up a road map for per annum of caprolactam. In 2005 distributions and attrition-resistant technology innovation. have to be these achievements won that year’s strength of the catalysts. All of which He led a five-year National cleverer than only first class award for national resulted in an 8000 tonnes/year Natural Science Foundation of technological invention – one catalyst plant. Remarkably, it took China research project to develop anybody else, of the most highly prized of the only five years from the development green chemical technologies, you have to put government’s national awards. of the catalysts to plant completion. with achievements including the Towards the end of the 1960s, development of an amorphous more effort in’ The philosophy of hard work Min developed a series of zeolite nickel-based alloy and a Min laughs when asked which of materials for cracking catalysts. magnetically stabilised bed reactor his many achievements he is most These heralded a technological to produce caprolactam, a precursor proud. ‘It’s hard to choose one,’ revolution in China’s refining of nylon-6. Crude caprolactam he says, without boasting. ‘There industry, and triggered large contains several unsaturated is an old philosophy that the most increases in petroleum product compounds, including 1,2- important thing is to be diligent,’ yields. cyclohexanedione and says Min. ‘You don’t have to be Through the 1970s and 80s, Min 2-hydroxycyclohexanone, which cleverer than anybody else; you have led development of manufacturing cannot be extracted or distilled, but to put more effort in.’ technologies for new generations can impair the properties of nylon-6. University education is changing of cracking catalysts. In 1985 he So purification of crude caprolactam in China. There was a time when was awarded China’s second rank is essential; this can be done by would-be scientists in China dreamt national award for science and hydrogenating the unsaturated of studying in the West, and many technology progress for developing compounds catalysed by Raney stayed there, to ensure success. a zeolite catalyst called Y–7. The nickel in a slurry reactor, and Now, Western scientists, especially catalyst had higher hydrothermal then removing the hydrogenated chemists, marvel at developments in stability than competitor’s catalysts compounds by distillation. The China, where universities and new at the time. China’s national process has low hydrogenation departments are springing up, and awards are a highly prized mark of efficiency and uses a lot of catalyst. where industry is investing heavily. government recognition. Min’s team developed a novel ‘The attractiveness of the US Min is no stranger to top national hydrogenation process by combining is becoming less by the year as awards. In 1995, a hydrothermally- amorphous Ni-based alloy catalysts China takes off,’ says Min. He has stable zeolite called ZRP that he and a magnetically stabilised supervised 30 PhD students at the and his colleagues developed was bed reactor. The end result was a Research Institute of Petroleum recognised by the state Ministry of process that is up to 10 per cent more Processing, a surprisingly small science & technology as one of the efficient and uses 70 per cent less number for such a long career, ten most important science and catalyst than the original process. but PhDs are a relatively recent technology achievements in China. The team says the new process can introduction to China’s research By the 1980s, it had become clear also be extended to other areas of institutes. Until 1982, students that chemical processes which petrochemical processing. took masters degrees only: ‘It was eliminate pollution at source rather 2003 saw construction of the difficult to train students up to PhD than post-treatment were needed. world’s first industrial magnetically standard within the constraints of Min, who was by now vice-president stabilised bed reactor for Min’s main focus today is the education system,’ says Min, who and chief engineer at Sinopec caprolactam hydrofinishing. The biodiesel has also supervised about 60 masters students. Min is keen for his students to take up postdocs abroad for a year or two and currently has a student working in Germany.

Back to nature Min’s focus is now firmly on China’s environmental clean up. Since the start of the 21st century Min has focused mainly on biodiesel. He COLIN CUTHBERT / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY PHOTO SCIENCE / CUTHBERT COLIN has developed a near-supercritical- pressure process for manufacturing biodiesel, laying the foundations for an industrial unit. Producing biodiesel fuel by developing oil-bearing plants will turn agricultural and forestry products into industrial products, says Min, which will help readjust China’s agricultural structure, increase farmers’ incomes and protect the environment. He’s almost come full circle; he never did build that fertiliser factory, but Min might end up working with farmers after all.

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