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 ...

and

chemical engineer A chemical engineer is a professional equipped with the knowledge of chemistry and other basic sciences who works principally in the chemical industry to convert basic raw materials into a variety of Product (chemistry), products and deals with ...

. 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; ) is the national academy for natural sciences and the highest consultancy for science and technology of the People's Republic of China. It is the world's largest research organization, with 106 research i ...

(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 uses solutions to recover metals from ores, concentrates, and recycled or residual materials. Usually the extracti ...

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 ...

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 the City of Chengdu, capital of Sichuan, China. Geography Jintang is bordered by the prefecture-level cities of Deyang to the north and east and Jianyang to the south. History In the 19th century, Jintang County wa ...

Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...

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

Chengdu Chengdu; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ; Chinese postal romanization, previously Romanization of Chinese, romanized as Chengtu. is the capital city of the Chinese province of Sichuan. With a ...

, 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 (; abbreviated NCU; ) is a public research university based in Taiwan. It was founded in 1902 in Nanjing; initially located in Miaoli after moving to Taiwan, it relocated to Zhongli in 1962 and developed into a com ...

, then exiled in

Chongqing ChongqingPostal Romanization, Previously romanized as Chungking ();. is a direct-administered municipality in Southwestern China. Chongqing is one of the four direct-administered municipalities under the State Council of the People's Republi ...

during the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War was fought between the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China and the Empire of Japan between 1937 and 1945, following a period of war localized to Manchuria that started in 1931. It is considered part ...

. 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 (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

(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 university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

, 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 Illino ...

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

DuPont Dupont, DuPont, Du Pont, duPont, or du Pont may refer to: People * Dupont (surname) Dupont, also spelled as DuPont, duPont, Du Pont, or du Pont is a French surname meaning "of the bridge", historically indicating that the holder of the surname re ...

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 The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

. 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; it has chemical symbol, 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. Ura ...

, copper, and other

non-ferrous metals In metallurgy, non-ferrous metals are metals or alloy An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which in most cases at least one is a metal, metallic element, although it is also sometimes used for mixtures of elements; herein only meta ...

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

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

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

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

Gansu Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...

and

Panzhihua Panzhihua ( zh, c=攀枝花, p=Pānzhīhuā), formerly Dukou ( zh, labels=no, c=渡口), is a prefecture-level city located in the far south of Sichuan province, China, at the confluence of the Jinsha and Yalong Rivers. It has an administrative ...

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

cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), 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. ...

. During the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...

, 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

Chinese Communist Party The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...

. 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) is a political advisory body in the People's Republic of China and a central part of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s United front (China), united front system. Its members adv ...

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-ranking government officials and, in recent years, individuals deemed of major importance due to their contributions to soc ...

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 People's Republic of China politicians from Sichuan Educators from Sichuan People from Jintang County Grainger College of Engineering alumni