On October 25, Prof. SU Dangsheng, invited by Prof. ZHANG Tierui, visited Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences and gave a wonderful lecture entitled Nanocarbon as Catalyst for Sustainable Catalysis.

In the report, Prof. SU firstly discussed the study of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The report by Sumjo Iijima from the Japanese electronic company NEC in a 1991 paper on the observation of  carbon nanotubes (CNTs) signaled the birth of a new research area and inspired a flood of scientific activities worldwide, crossing several disciplines. Soon after that, CNTs were found to have excellent mechanical, physical, and chemical properties, and in fact were presumed to combine all the best properties. A wide range of methods has been developed to produce CNTs on a large scale, modify them, and integrate them into devices or use them in materials science, catalysis, and energy research. Billions of dollars, funded by governments, organizations, and foundations, have been invested in these research activities. Now CNT is twenty years old and many applications of CNTs have been demonstrated on the basis of these efforts and innovations.

After that, he discussed the advantage and disadvantage to use nanocarbons as catalyst or catalyst support.

Prof. SU is from Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He got his doctor degree in Vienna University of Technology in 1991.