Huang Weiyuan (; December 15, 1921 – November 17, 2015) was a Chinese organic chemist and an academician 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 ...

. He served as President of the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry and President of the Chinese Chemical Society.

Early life and education

Huang was born in

Putian Putian ( zh, s= , Putian dialect: ''Pó-chéng''), also known as Puyang (莆阳) and Puxian (莆仙), historically known as Hinghwa/Hinghua ( zh, s=兴化, t=興化), is a prefecture-level city in Fujian Province, People's Republic of China. I ...

Fujian Fujian is a provinces of China, province in East China, southeastern China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefe ...

, China on December 15, 1921. He graduated from Fukien Christian University in 1943 with a bachelor's degree in chemistry. After earning his MS in 1949 from

Lingnan University Lingnan University a public research university located in Tuen Mun, New Territories, Hong Kong. Lingnan University has 3 faculties, 3 Schools, 16 departments, 2 language centres, and 2 units (science and music), offering 29 degree honours ...

Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...

, he entered Harvard University and received his Ph.D. in 1952. His graduate advisor was the organic chemist

Louis Fieser Louis Frederick Fieser (April 7, 1899 – July 25, 1977) was an American organic chemist, professor, and in 1968, professor emeritus at Harvard University. His award-winning research included work on blood-clotting agents including the first ...

Career

Huang joined the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC),

in 1955. In 1958, he responded to the demand of Chinese defense industry, stopped his established organic natural product research work and pursued research in the field of

organofluorine chemistry Organofluorine chemistry describes the chemistry of organofluorine compounds, organic compounds that contain a carbon–fluorine bond. Organofluorine compounds find diverse applications ranging from Lipophobicity, oil and hydrophobe, water repell ...

. Under his leadership, the major base for organofluorine chemistry in China was established at the SIOC. Huang discovered the sulfinatodehalogenation reaction in 1981, which converts perfluoroalkyl halides to the corresponding perfluoroalkanesulfinates with sulfinatodehalogenation reagents such as

sodium dithionite Sodium dithionite (also known as sodium hydrosulfite) is a white crystalline powder with a sulfurous odor. Although it is stable in dry air, it decomposes in hot water and in acid solutions. Structure left, 220px, Packing of sodium dithionit ...

. He and his students identified this reaction as a single electron transfer reaction. This reaction opens a new and practical way for perfluoroalkylation of unsaturated substrates such as alkenes alkynes and aromatics compounds with sulfinatodehalogenation reagents. This reaction is well documented internationally and he won the Second-class Award of National Natural Science in 1986. Huang has published more than 200 research papers and has mentored twenty Ph.D. candidates, including the first Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry in Mainland China. He was the first one in China (1958) to introduce NMR and IR applications in organic chemistry. He was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980. Huang was deputy director of SIOC (1978-1984) and director from 1984-1987. SIOC is the major Chinese chemistry research center and the place edits and publishes several major Chinese academic journals of chemistry. Huang was the founder and chief editor of the ''Chinese Journal of Chemistry''. He was elected as President of the Chinese Chemical Society (1986-1990). Huang was in the first delegation from the Chinese chemist community to visit USA in 1977 and he made great efforts to establish the good relationship in exchange of scholars and visiting between Chinese and American chemists.''Chem. Eng. News'', 1977, 55 (19), p 5 and 1977, 55 (20), pp 30–31 Huang received broad recognition from international chemistry community. He was elected as bureau member of

IUPAC The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC ) is an international federation of National Adhering Organizations working for the advancement of the chemical sciences, especially by developing nomenclature and terminology. It is ...

(1985-1993). He was awarded the Moissan Medal in 1986 at the conference "Centenary of the Discovery of Fluorine" in Paris. He was the co-chairman of 17th international symposium of fluorine chemistry in 2003.

Death

Huang died in the United States on November 17, 2015, aged 93.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Huang, Weiyuan 1921 births 2015 deaths Chemists from Fujian Fujian Normal University alumni Harvard University alumni Lingnan University (Guangzhou) alumni Members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Chinese organic chemists People from Putian