Chen Jiayong (; also romanized as Chia-yung Chen; 17 February 1922 – 26 August 2019) was a Chinese

metallurgist Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...

and

chemical engineer In the field of engineering, a chemical engineer is a professional, equipped with the knowledge of chemical engineering, who works principally in the chemical industry to convert basic raw materials into a variety of products and deals with the ...

. He was a research professor and Vice President of the Institute of Process Engineering of the

Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republ ...

(CAS). A pioneer in the development of

hydrometallurgy Hydrometallurgy is a technique within the field of extractive metallurgy, the obtaining of metals from their ores. Hydrometallurgy involve the use of aqueous solutions for the recovery of metals from ores, concentrates, and recycled or residual m ...

in China, he was elected an academician of the CAS in 1980. He was awarded the

State Science and Technology Prizes The State Science and Technology Prizes () are the highest honors conferred by the national government of the People's Republic of China in science and technology, in order to recognize citizens and organizations who have made remarkable contribut ...

five times and the

Ho Leung Ho Lee Prize The Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation (HLHL, ) is a Hong Kong-based non-government organisation which annually bestows prizes upon Chinese scientists. It was established on 30 March 1994, with funds donated from the charitable foundations of Ho Sin Han ...

for Scientific and Technological Progress in 1996.

Early life and education

Chen was born on 17 February 1922 in

Jintang County Jintang County is a county of Sichuan Province, China, it is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Chengdu, the provincial capital. Geography Jintang is bordered by the prefecture-level cities of Deyang to the north and east ...

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

. He was the fourth child and eldest son of his father Chen Songpu (), a school teacher. In 1925, his family moved to

Chengdu Chengdu (, ; Simplified Chinese characters, simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively Romanization of Chi ...

, where he studied at Chengdu County Primary School and Chengdu County High School (now Chengdu No. 7 High School). In 1939, he was admitted to the Department of Chemical Engineering of

National Central University National Central University (NCU, ; Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: ''Kwet-li̍p Chung-yong Thài-ho̍k'', Wade–Giles: ''Kuo2 Li4 Chung Yang Ta4 Hsüeh2'' or ''中大'', ''Chung-ta'') is a public research university with long-standing traditions based in Taiwa ...

, then exiled in

Chongqing Chongqing ( or ; ; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Romanization, alternately romanized as Chungking (), is a Direct-administered municipalities of China, municipality in Southwes ...

during the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...

. He studied under some of the then top chemists of the country, including , , and . After graduating in 1943, he was hired by the university as a faculty member. Under the guidance of Gao Jiyu, he was the first in China to successfully synthesize the pesticide

DDT Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, commonly known as DDT, is a colorless, tasteless, and almost odorless crystalline chemical compound, an organochloride. Originally developed as an insecticide, it became infamous for its environmental impacts. ...

Career in the United States

After the end of World War II, Chen was awarded a Chinese government scholarship to pursue graduate studies in the United States in 1947. He earned his master's and Ph.D. (in 1952) from the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...

(UIUC), under the supervision of Sherlock Swann and H.F. Johnstone. In 1952, he became a postdoctoral researcher at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

, before returning to UIUC to work under Johnstone. His highly cited paper "Filtration of Aerosols by Fibrous Media" was published in the journal ''

Chemical Reviews ''Chemical Reviews'' is peer-reviewed scientific journal published twice per month by the American Chemical Society. It publishes review articles on all aspects of chemistry. It was established in 1924 by William Albert Noyes (University of Illinoi ...

'' in 1955. In 1954, he became a research engineer at the Yerkes Research Laboratory of the chemical company

DuPont DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...

Career in China

In 1956, the American government reached an agreement with the PRC to permit Chinese students in the US to go home, who had been banned from moving back to China since the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

. Chen and his wife decided to return to China with their two daughters. On the invitation of the renowned metallurgist

Ye Zhupei Ye Zhupei or Yap Chu-Phay (; 1902 – 24 November 1971) was a Chinese physical chemist, chemical engineer, and metallurgist. Born into an overseas Chinese family in the Philippines and educated in the United States, he moved to China in the 1930 ...

(Yap Chu-Phay), he accepted the position as Director of the Hydrometallurgical Laboratory of the Institute of Chemical Metallurgy (renamed as the Institute of Process Engineering in 2001), which was then being established by Ye under the

(CAS). Although not specifically trained in metallurgy, Chen accepted the challenge to develop

in China. Hydrometallurgy, a more energy-efficient and cleaner process than traditional

pyrometallurgy Pyrometallurgy is a branch of extractive metallurgy. It consists of the thermal treatment of minerals and metallurgical ores and concentrates to bring about physical and chemical transformations in the materials to enable recovery of valuable ...

, is especially suitable for the extraction of

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

, copper, and other

non-ferrous metals In metallurgy, non-ferrous metals are metals or alloys that do not contain iron (allotropes of iron, ferrite, and so on) in appreciable amounts. Generally more costly than ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals are used because of desirable proper ...

. He spent years working under harsh conditions at the copper mine of

Dongchuan Dongchuan District is one of seven District (China), districts of the prefecture-level city of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, Yunnan Province, People's Republic of China. The district was approved to form from the former ''Dongchuan City'' by the ...

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

, and oversaw the construction of a copper factory nearby, which was opened in 1964. He also worked at the mines in Jinchuan,

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibet ...

and

Panzhihua Panzhihua (), formerly Dukou (), is a prefecture-level city located in the far south of Sichuan province, People's Republic of China, at the confluence of the Jinsha and Yalong Rivers. It has an administrative area of , and a population at the 2 ...

, Sichuan, and made technological breakthroughs to efficiently separate non-ferrous metals such as gold, silver, copper, nickel, and

cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, pr ...

. During the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...

, the technologies he developed were exported to Albania as part of China's foreign-aid program. He later served as Vice President of the Institute of Process Engineering. Chen supervised more than 50 graduate students, and published reference books including ''A Handbook on Hydrometallurgy'' (湿法冶金手册). He was awarded the

five times and the

for Scientific and Technological Progress in 1996. Chen was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980. In 2017, the CAS named China's first satellite for chemical engineering experiment after Chen. The ''CHEN Jiayong-1'' was launched into space from India in February 2017. It was the first satellite named after a Chinese scientist. Chen was a member of the

Communist Party of China The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...

. He served five consecutive terms as a member of the 4th to the 8th National Committees of the

Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC, zh, 中国人民政治协商会议), also known as the People's PCC (, ) or simply the PCC (), is a political advisory body in the People's Republic of China and a central part of ...

Death

On 26 August 2019, he died in Beijing at the age of 97. He was buried at the

Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery The Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery () is Beijing's main resting place for the highest-ranking revolutionary heroes, high government officials and, in recent years, individuals deemed of major importance due to their contributions to society. In ...

Personal life

In 1948 Chen married his university classmate Liu Rong () in the United States. The couple had two daughters.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chen, Jiayong 1922 births 2019 deaths Chemists from Sichuan Chinese chemical engineers Chinese expatriates in the United States Chinese metallurgists DuPont people Engineers from Sichuan Massachusetts Institute of Technology fellows Members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Members of the 4th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Members of the 5th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Members of the 6th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Members of the 7th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Members of the 8th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Central University alumni Academic staff of the National Central University Politicians from Chengdu University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni People's Republic of China politicians from Sichuan Educators from Sichuan People from Jintang County