On January 10, 2013, the annual National Science and Technology Awards (NSTA) Conference was held in the Great Hall. Chinese President Xi Jinping and other top leaders of Mr. Li Keqiang, Mr. Liu Yunshan, and Mr. Zhang Gaoli presented the certificates to all the winners.
The NSTA, representative of the scientific community's highest honor includes the following five awards: 1) the National Supreme Science and Technology Award; 2) the National Natural Science Award; 3) the National Technological Invention Award; 4) National Science and Technology Progress Award; 5) the International Science and Technology Cooperation Award.
In 2013, the iChEM Professor Shi-Gang Sun won the 2nd award of the National Natural Science Award for his outstanding work on Nano-catalysis; meanwhile, one of the iChEM Academic Committee members, Prof. Zhong Lin Wang received the award of International Science and Technology Cooperation.
Prof. Shi-Gang Sun for 20 years dedicated himself to fundamental research in electrochemistry and electro-catalysis and has made great, systematic and innovative achievements in fields such as the micro-structure and properties of electrode surfaces, the mechanisms of electro-catalytic reactions at the molecular level and shape-controlled syntheses of metal nano-catalysts. His research team has developed an original, new electrochemical method of producing high purity, tetrahexahedral platinum nanocrystals (with 24 facets), which are more active and more stable than existing commercial platinum catalysts. Furthermore, depending on the conditions, the new nanocrystals have proved as much as four times more catalytically active per unit surface area than existing commercial catalysts. His work has been cited by Science as “a major breakthrough in the synthesis of nano-catalysts".
Prof. Zhong Lin (ZL) Wang, who is the member of iChEM Academic Committee, the Hightower Chair in Materials Science and Engineering, Regents' Professor, College of Engineering Distinguished Professor and Director, Center for Nanostructure Characterization, at Georgia Institute of Technology, was honored the award of International Science and Technology Cooperation. Prof. Wang has made original and innovative contributions to the synthesis, discovery, characterization and understanding of fundamental physical properties of oxide nanobelts and nanowires, as well as applications of nanowires in energy sciences, electronics, optoelectronics and biological science. He was elected as a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2009 and member of European Academy of Sciences in 2002. The award he won this time was mainly based on his cooperation with XMU because he has collaborated with XMU for a long time in research projects, student training and scholar exchange, etc.
2013 NSTA were awarded 10 scientists and 313 projects, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Two Chinese scientists and members of Chinese Academy of Sciences, physical chemist Cunhao Zhang and nuclear weapons expert Kaijia Cheng won China's top science award for their outstanding contributions to scientific and technological innovation.
