On November 6th, the 2018 annual award ceremony of Ho Leung Ho Lee (HLHL) Foundation was held in Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. Present at the ceremony were Jianming Cao, vice chairman of the National People’s Congress standing council; Gang Wan, vice chairman of CPPCC and president of China Association for Science and Technology; Zhigang Wang, minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China. 56 scientists win the prize in 2018. Having made great contributions to China’s phosphorous chemical industry, SCU distinguished professor Benhe Zhong from the School of Chemical Engineering has won a HLHL Science and Technology Progress award for chemical engineering. Professor Zhicheng Zhou, an SCU alumnus and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering has also won a HLHL Award.
Being a renowned scientist in phosphorous chemical industry, Professor Benhe Zhong has worked in the field of phosphorous chemical research, technology and engineering for 60 years.The new technology of ammonium phosphate by slurry concentration is a technology invented by Benhe Zhong and her research team. It has ended the situation that middle to low-grade phosphate ores cannot produce high concentration phosphate fertilizer in China. This invention adds to the technology of phosphate fertilizer, and has freed China from its long-term dependence on expensive phosphate fertilizer from abroad. Moreover, this technology has enabled China to export phosphate fertilizer and bring home a large amount of money. It has also boosted China’s grain production substantially. Being a great success, the technology of ammonium phosphate by slurry concentration has become a landmark in the history of China’s agricultural development. Over 100 sets of production lines have been built. Along with “hybrid rice” technology by Longping Yuan, this new technology has been listed as one of the top five scientific and technological achievements of the national “85”Project. After that, Professor Benhe Zhong and her research team have made a breakthrough in a series of core technical issues regarding efficient utilization of phosphorous resources. One of the breakthroughs is wet phosphoric acid purification, which has broken the foreign technology monopoly. She has won the First Prize and the Second Prize of National Science and Technology Progress Prize respectively, and Science and Technology Progress prizes of the Ministry of Education, Sichuan provincial Science and Technology Progress Awards over ten times and a Zhao Yonggao Innovative Achievement Prize and so on. She is the chief scientist of phosphorous chemical science in SCU’s construction of “double first-class” university. In 2017, her research team has been recognized as a “Huang Danian Style Teacher Team” by the Ministry of Education.
HLHL Foundation was founded by patriotic Hong Kong financiers Shanheng Ho, Leung Kau Kui, Tian He, and Guowei Lee in 1994. Being the biggest non-governmental award foundation of science and technology, the foundation gives awards to science and technology workers who have made outstanding contribution to China’s science and technology. There are three awards “Science and Technology Achievement”, “Science and Technology Progress” and “Science and Technology Innovation”. The awards are given annually. As of the writing of this article, nine SCU science and technology researchers have won HLHL Foundation awards. The award winners are Xi Xu, Zhao Ke, Heping Xie, Yingming Liu, Xingdong Zhang, Yuzhong Wang, Zhisheng You, Jiaxiu Wang, Weilin Xu, Hongning Wang.
