Benhe Zhong is a professor and advisor of PhD candidates at the School of Chemical Engineering of Sichuan University. She was elected Sichuan University Distinguished Professor in 2009. She is an executive director of China Phosphate Fertilizer Industry Association and Director of Fertilizer Committee of China Chemical Society. With multiple patents to her name, she is a State Council special allowance expert and has won National Scientific and Technological Progress awards many times. In 2010, she was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award by China Inorganic Salt Industry Association. Her main research areas are phosphorous compound fertilizer and phosphorous chemical.
Bearing national needs for advanced science and important technology in mind, distinguished professor Benhe Zhong and the faculty team of chemical engineering have been incessant in their hard work for dozens of years. They have won first and second National Scientific and Technological Progress prizes, Scientific and Technological Progress prizes of the ministry of education many times. The new technology of ammonium phosphate by slurry concentration is a technology first created by Benhe Zhong’s research team. It has ended the situation that middle to low-grade phosphate ores cannot produce ammonium phosphate in China. This technology is on a par with Longping Yuan’s “hybrid rice” technology in the light of its benefits to China’s agriculture and food safety. Though this new technology is highly acclaimed by her fellow researchers in the world, Benhe Zhong continues with her effort in the mass production of phosphorous chemical of China. Eventually, she has helped to turn China into a main exporter of ammonium phosphate. It is in the process of production, study and research that Benhe Zhong’s research team has gone from strength to strength.
Just like Benhe Zhong herself, each individual teacher on her team has practical experience of engineering. The teachers, for the most part, will spend more than 100 days visiting plants every year. And their students are required to go and gain experience of engineering in a plant. The team has formed a culture: application and development are project-oriented. It has also initiated an EPC model to transfer research results into service, the first of its kind among China’s universities and colleges.
A forward-looing perspective: undertake the mission of our times
“We need to make a breakthrough in the research of phosphate fertilizer in this new agricultural era”, says Xinlong Wang. The faculty team of chemical engineering at SCU will not be content with current accomplishments. Instead, the team will continue to face the future, aim at the national rural revitalization strategy and conduct research of phosphorous chemical engineering that fits the needs of a new epoch. It is their plan to work out specific fertilizer to meet the needs of agriculture. Therefore, they have started cooperation with Chinese Academy of Agriculture and Chinese Agricultural University to research a way to produce innocuous and green phosphate fertilizer.
Our future depends upon talents. Almost every teacher on the team has acted as a class advisor，teaching on the average one to two undergraduate and graduate courses. Over the years, this team has trained over 350 master degree graduates, over 80 PhDs and 15 postdoctoral fellows. Many of the graduates have become backbones in their fields of research.
At the advanced age of 80, Professor Benhe Zhong still teaches classes. She ran a course for graduate students in 2017. She indicates: “Teaching a class can help me better understand the students and provide them with better help and guidance.”
To better train young talents, Professor Benhe Zhong advocates the model of “teaching- assisting – guiding.” She entrusts the young with challenging projects, and she has trained a large number of talents in phosphate chemical engineer. Her team has got 11 projects approved as either the National 863 Plan project, National Key Research Projects, the 11th Five-Year Science and Technology Support Plan projects or projects of National Funding of Sciences/Youth Projects. They have made important contribution to the sustainable development of green phosphate chemicals. Xinlong Wang has always been ranked one of the best teachers in the semester-end teacher evaluation. His class is well received by his students. Zhenguo Wu, a new teacher joining the team of Professor Benhe Zhong, says: “Professor Zhong will take into consideration an individual student’s unique situation when helping a student decide on a research topic and his/her prospective job. She does things in the best interest of a student in the long run.”
In the celebration of the university's 122-year anniversary, Professor Benhe Zhong and her team has established the "Zhong Benhe Scholarship" with their 1.22 million RMB donation to award promising graduate students in Phosphorus Chemical Industry of Chemical Engineering College.
