Dr Min Enze FRSC

The Chinese Scientific community gathered in Beijing to pay their final respect to Dr Enze Min, who was among the first Chinese Fellows of Royal Society of Chemistry in China, who passed away on 7 March 2016 at the age of 92.

Dr Min Enze was a renowned Chinese expert in petrochemical catalysis, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE).

Dr Min was born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. He graduated from National Central University (Nanjing University) in 1946, majoring in chemical engineering.

In 1951, Min obtained his doctor's degree from Ohio State University in the United States. He worked for the National Aluminate Corporation between 1951 and 1955.  He returned to China in August 1955 after the Korean War ended and was assigned work at Beijing Institute of Oil Refining (now Institute of Petrochemical Science of China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation).

Since 1956, he had been working at the ministry of petroleum's research institute in Beijing which later became Sinopec Research Institute of Petroleum Processing (RIPP). In 1959, China discovered Daqing, the biggest oil field in the country and Dr Min was widely recognised for having laid the technical foundation of petroleum refining catalysts in China. He developed cracking catalysts, including spherical aluminium silicate catalysts for aviation fuel, and micro-spherical Si-Al catalysts for the production of petro, diesel and liquefied petroleum gases. 

Towards the end of the 1960s, Dr Min developed a series of zeolite materials for cracking catalysts. These heralded a technological revolution in China's refining industry, and triggered large increases in petroleum product yields. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, Dr Min led the development of manufacturing technologies for new generations of cracking catalysts.

For his work on a hydrothermally-stable zeolite called ZRP that he and his colleagues developed was recognised by the state Ministry of Science and Technology as one of the ten most important science and technology achievements in China in 1995.

He also led a five-year National Natural Science Foundation of China research project to develop green chemical technologies. His team developed a novel hydrogenation process by combining amorphous Ni-based alloy catalysts and a magnetically stabilised bed reaction.

In 2003, they built the world's first industrial magnetically stabilised bed reactor for caprolactam hydrofinishing. Dr Min was elected an academician of Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) in 1980, member of Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in 1993 and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 1994. He served as the chairman of academic committee of the Institute of Petrochemical Science of China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec).

Dr Min received the State Pre-eminent Science and Technology Award in 2007, the most prestigious scientific prize awarded in China.

Min died on 7 March 2016 at the age of 92 in Beijing.

Asteroid 30991 Minenze is named in his honor.