At 12:00 on April 6, 2022, Yu Guocong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a famous chemical expert, and a professor of Tianjin University, died in Tianjin at the age of 100.
Yu Guocong was born in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province in November 1922. He graduated from the Department of Chemical Engineering of Southwest Associated University in 1943. Since 1945, he has studied for a master's degree and a doctorate degree at the University of Michigan and the University of Pittsburgh. After graduation, he taught at the University of Pittsburgh.
In 1950, he broke through many obstacles and resolutely returned to the motherland. He worked in the Department of Chemical Engineering of Tangshan Institute of Technology, Northern Jiaotong University, and was one of the first scholars to return to the United States.
Since 1952, he has worked in the Department of Chemical Engineering of Tianjin University, and was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1991.
Yu Guocong is the founder of distillation and separation discipline in my country, the forerunner of modern industrial distillation technology, and the pioneer of chemical separation engineering science. He has been engaged in chemical separation science and engineering research for a long time. Systematic, pioneering work.
He proposed a relatively complete unsteady distillation theory and the "two-column method" for concentrating heavy water, which solved the key problem of heavy water separation and made important contributions to the start of new China's nuclear technology and the breakthrough of "two bombs and one satellite".
Facing the major needs of my country's economic construction, he carried out research on new technologies for large-scale industrial distillation columns, laid the theoretical foundation for modern distillation technology, and formed "high-efficiency packed column technology with new column internals", completely breaking the monopoly of foreign technology. , which has effectively promoted the leap-forward development of my country's petrochemical industry.
He devoted himself to the research on the basic theory of chemical industry, and proposed the "Yu-ku" equation of the relationship between vapor-liquid equilibrium composition and temperature, created a new research field of computational mass transfer, and led the development of the field of chemical separation.
Yu Guocong has been engaged in chemical separation science and engineering research for a long time, and is known as "the founder of my country's distillation and separation discipline", "the pioneer of modern industrial distillation technology", and the "pioneer of chemical separation engineering science".
He once said: "In scientific research, there is a need for perseverance. A person's energy is limited, and only cooperation can do great things."
(Headquarters reporter Yang Yu and Wang Xiaopei)