In 2017, Prof. Jin Wanqin’s team made a breakthrough in the field of graphene research, which was published in the world’s leading journal Nature, the course led by the team members was awarded as a “state benchmark course”, the students supervised by the team won the Special Award in the 15th “Challenge Cup”, and two teachers of the team were awarded the title of “Top Ten Teachers of Virtue” of Nanjing Tech University.

This is a group of teachers who work together to cultivate virtue and skill and a group of researchers who work hard and pursue both professional excellence and moral integrity. Let’s get closer to this group of dream pursers who have dedicated themselves to teaching, education, scientific research, and service: the team of materials-chemical engineering led by Prof. Jin at Nanjing Tech University.

Serving the Country with Utter Devotion and Bringing Together a Team of Benevolent Teachers

“The Shi Jun Spirit, as a culture, has been deeply infused into the hearts of all people in Chemical Engineering, and returning to their alma mater is the obsession of the students,” said Prof. Jin Wanqin, the Head of Teachers Team of Material-Chemical Engineering at NanjingTech. He graduated from the College of Chemical Engineering of Nanjing Tech University, the founder of which was Prof. Shi Jun, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the master of chemical engineering higher education in China. Prof. Shi graduated from Tsinghua University and then further studied in the United States. After the July 7th Incident, Prof. Shi returned to his war-torn homeland with the goal of educating the country and devoted himself to chemical engineering higher education and scientific research. He was appointed as a professor at the age of 27 and taught for 67 years, cultivating countless students, including nearly 20 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering. At the age of 86, Prof. Shi presided over the compilation of the Chemical Engineering Volume of the Encyclopedia of China.

“Although the great man has departed this world, his thoughts and spirit will live forever. Shi Jun Spirit is a legacy for us later scholars, guiding us to aim high and put in relentless effort to develop moral education,” said Prof. Fan Yiqun, a team member, the Second Prize Winner of the National Technology Invention Award, and the Dean of the College of Chemical Engineering. “Prof. Shi’s spirit has always influenced me, calling me to give up the privileged life abroad and return to China to work after my studies,” exclaimed Prof. Bao Ningzhong, a team member who presides over the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars. During his undergraduate studies, Prof. Bao won the Shijun Scholarship, and during his graduate studies, he studied under Prof. Lu Xiaohua, a disciple of Prof. Shi Jun. Influenced by Shi Jun Spirit, Prof. Bao returned to his alma mater to serve his country with what he had learned after years of study abroad.

Prof. Jin Wanqin sticks to the education creed: Teaching and educating should emphasize teaching by precept and example and cultivate talents for the people. “Prof. Jin is the first to come to the laboratory every day, and when he returns from a business trip, he also goes straight to the laboratory to monitor our research progress. It has become a habit for him to guide students to do the experiments and revise their papers during the Spring Festival and National Day and other long holidays,” said Dr. Zhu Jiawei. “Before the students and young teachers of the group went out to give academic reports, Prof. Jin listened to our rehearsals again and again, constantly helping us to modify the content of the report and teaching the experience of making reports. He would pay attention to even a small gesture when making reports,” said Prof. Liu Gongping.

“ Prof. Jin instructs us young teachers on how to deliver the two courses, Chemical Principle, and Membrane Reactor,” said Prof. Gu Xuehong. He still remembers that before he started to teach, Prof. Jin asked him to listen to the lectures with his younger students, and he had to submit at least three insightful points and suggestions after each lecture; after he started to teach, Prof. Jin would listen to his lectures, and after the lectures, Prof. Jin would point out the areas that needed to be improved during the lectures and the details that needed to be paid attention to when interacting with students.

“The annual bonus of about 10,000 yuan to motivate students is not a big amount for me personally, but for students, it is a kind of encouragement and care,” said Prof. Ju Shengui, a team member and the “Top Ten Teachers of Virtue” of NanjingTech. Since 2002, Prof. Ju Shengui has set up the “Progress Award” in his own class, which is a four-year cycle to reward students who improve their grade ranking by 40 and has now benefited eight classes with nearly 100 students. The students are touched by what Prof. Ju has done for them. Moreover, they are impressed by his course Chemical Principle as well, for it is a humanistic enjoyment while receiving knowledge.

All flowers in full blossom make a beautiful spring. The teachers team of Material-Chemical Engineering is dedicated to educating the students, and both full and associate professors of the team undertake undergraduate and graduate courses, with an average annual teaching workload of 119.6 standard hours; team members also coordinate the heavy teaching and research tasks. In recent years, the team has trained 81 doctors and 341 masters; teachers such as Prof. Jin Wanqin, Prof. Guan Guofeng, Prof. Fan Yiqun, and Prof. Ju Shengui have been awarded “Excellent Educator”, “Excellent Supervisor of Graduation Thesis (Design)”, and “Top Ten Teachers of Virtue” of NanjingTech.

Focusing on Integration and Cultivating a Group of Compound Talents

Prof. Jin Wanqin’s team continues to innovate the concept of education and teaching, and establishes a new training mechanism to strengthen practical value and innovation in response to the characteristics of multidisciplinary intersection in the modern chemical industry. The team members have transformed the advantages of scientific research into teaching advantages, offering special courses for undergraduate and graduate students, and integrating 32 research findings into undergraduate teaching content. In order to promote the cultivation of students’ international vision, bilingual teaching in main courses has been offered, students are sponsored to participate in large academic conferences at home and abroad, and exchange students with other countries have been supported.

 Only by implementing interdisciplinary “Big Engineering Education” can we break through the professional fence of talent cultivation and realize multidisciplinary integration. Prof. Guan Guofeng believes in such a concept and has led a group of professional teachers from the College of Mechanical Engineering, College of Electrical Engineering and Control Science, College of Chemical Engineering, and College of Safety Science and Engineering to start the education practice since 2011. Prof. Guan introduced that through the intersection and penetration of disciplines, the organic integration of curriculum-talent-industry has not only strongly promoted the updating and reform of teaching content, but also improved the overall teaching and research level of the team’s teachers, which actually drives teaching by research and promotes research by teaching. Under the real situation of chemical engineering, students can systematically participate in completing a project, and three teams have been awarded the title of Excellent Graduation Design Team in Jiangsu Province. In the past five years, the team has won 2 National Teaching Achievement Awards, and 6 Provincial and Ministerial Teaching Achievement Awards; the “Chemical Principle” course has been selected as a national benchmark course, and 5 textbooks have been published, and the textbook Experimental of Chemical Engineering Principle (English Version) is the first one in China; the students under the guidance of the team have won 6 Special Awards in the National Student Chemical Design Competition, and completed 46 projects of scientific research and innovation and entrepreneurship; and 17 students have been granted funding for postgraduate innovation projects in the province. More than 10 of the students are working as professors and associate professors in universities at home and abroad, and more than 20 of them are working in senior positions in the enterprise sector.

Facing the Frontier and Developing Several Independent Innovation Projects

In the great era of jointly building the Chinese Dream, Prof. Jin Wanqin and his team have been working on several major fundamental and engineering problems in the fields of chemicals and materials, facing major national needs and international academic frontiers.

The application of graphene oxide membranes to seawater desalination, chlor-alkali industry, fuel cells, etc. has been the consensus of the scientific community, but currently, graphene for ion sieving and seawater desalination still faces difficulties in controlling the interlayer spacing of GO membranes precisely to one-tenth of a nanometer scale. Prof. Jin Wanqin’s team has collaborated with Prof. Fang Haiping’s team at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics and Prof. Wu Minghong’s team at Shanghai University to conduct research and make a breakthrough in the field of graphene membranes, and the findings were reported in Nature on October 9, 2017. Prof. Jin’s team’s high-performance membrane separation technology can save energy consumption by 50%, which opens up new ideas and provides theoretical and technical guidance for the development of next-generation high-performance graphene membranes and even two-dimensional material membranes.

In the past five years, the team members have presided over more than 30 major projects, with research funding of more than 120 million RMB and per capita research funding of more than 1.6 million RMB/year; they won the Second Prize of National Technology Invention (2011) and 7 Provincial and Ministerial Science and Technology Achievement Awards; and published more than 900 SCI papers in Nature, Adv. Mater. and Ang. Chem. Int. Ed., including 24 papers with IF over 10.0 and 34 papers in three major chemical engineering journals such as AIChE J. Prof. Jin Wanqin has been selected as one of the Highly Cited Chinese Researchers in the field of Chemical Engineering by Elsevier for three consecutive years from 2014 to 2016. He has edited and co-edited 9 monographs and books as well.

Uniting Knowledge and Action and Demonstrating the Industrialized Scientific Research Strength

The confidence in science and technology is included in the confidence in the culture so that workers in science and technology should shoulder the responsibility of revitalizing the national industry. After returning to China, Prof. Fan Yiqun participated in the establishment of two companies, Nanjing Jiusi High-Tech Ltd. and Jiangsu Jiuwu High-Tech Ltd.. What Prof. Fan hopes is to transfer more technologies to industrialization and develop more new products continuously. In just three months, the company developed China’s first set of large ceramic membrane equipment and achieved a profit tax of more than 2 million yuan that year. In the past five years, the team has been granted 134 invention patents and 1 U.S. patent, forming technological and industrial advantages in the fields of membrane technology and green chemical industry, cultivating more than 10 high-tech enterprises, with direct economic benefits of more than 2 billion yuan.

Staying Focused and Passing on the Shi Jun Spirit

Prof. Shi has become a banner, guiding all the teachers to climb the peak of science. In the past 15 years since his return to China, Prof. Jin Wanqin has stayed true to his promise and led his team members to focus on cultivating talent and scientific research, contributing the wisdom and strength of educators to the realization of the Chinese dream.

Inspired by Shi Jun Spirit, the team members have consciously inherited the culture of “cultivation, seeking and dedication”, bringing greater unity and cohesion to the team. The exemplary vanguard role of Party members in Prof. Jin’s team is given full play. The team was awarded the title of “Advanced Party Branch” by Nanjing Tech University. What’s more, the team has a sound mechanism for echelon construction, and young academicians have emerged, with 73.3% of the members under 45 years old. The team members specialize in chemical, biological, and other related fields, with the ability of basic research to major engineering research and development, forming an academic echelon with significant influence in the international field of Materials-Chemical Engineering.

“ ‘It is better to pass on fishing skills than to hand out fish. It is better to pass on the desire to learn than to pass on fishing skills’, and the teachers team of Material-Chemical Engineering will always continue the progress,” said Prof. Jin Wanqin.