There are "thoroughfares" for chemical safety

Towards the end of the year, as the chief engineer of China Sinochem Shenyang Research Institute of Chemical Industry, I am busy working on several major projects: building the Hazardous Chemicals Safety Risk Early Warning and Intelligent Control Technology Laboratory of the Emergency Management Department, building the China Sinochem Chemical Safety Technology Innovation Center, and leading the formulation of national chemical safety standards. These projects sound slightly obscure, but they are closely related to the clothing, food, housing, and transportation of ordinary people.

In 1979, a student with outstanding achievements in chemistry entered Sun Yat sen University, opening her inextricable bond with chemical engineering. At that time, China's chemical industry was still relatively backward. Taking pesticides as an example, the vast majority of important pesticides are produced by importing or imitating foreign processes, with low benefits and many hidden dangers. "The backward process, with the same amount of raw materials input, may only produce half of the output of a household, sometimes with the production of waste and toxic substances." Sheng had some experience with the weaknesses of the Chinese chemical industry at that time.

How to shorten the gap? The responsibility rests with every chemical worker! In order to find more safe and environmentally friendly chemical process technology paths, students are busy doing "white plus black" work: doing experiments in the laboratory during the day, recording data, and finding problems; I spent the evening in the library, combing English publications since the founding of the American Chemical Abstracts in 1907, exploring clues to technological routes... A large number of technological difficulties in important products were overcome.

"Chemical reaction risk research is an interdisciplinary discipline, and to become an 'expert', one must have a 'miscellaneous' foundation.". Students devote all their energy to leading the team, building platforms, and finding ways. Everything comes to him who waits. Since 2017, the chemical reaction safety risk assessment technology developed by the team led by Sheng has been promoted and applied in the national fine chemical industry, and the product yield, "three wastes" emissions, and injury rate per million working hours of relevant enterprises have reached international advanced levels.