Title：C1 Chemistry: Catalytic Carbonylation and Cyanation
Speaker：Researcher Lin He (Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Invited by：Prof. Liangbin Huang
Time：November 6, 2026 (Friday), 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Venue：Meeting Room 105 of the Shaw Engineering Building, Wushan Campus
Organizer：School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
Biography
Lin He is a research professor and doctoral supervisor at the Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. After obtaining his bachelor’s degree from Lanzhou University in 2005, he worked for two years at Sichuan Mianyang Li’er Chemical Co., Ltd. and the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He received his PhD from Fudan University in 2012 and then pursued a three and a half year postdoctoral research at the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis in Germany in the group of Matthias Beller. He returned to China in 2016 and established his independent research group as a national high level introduced talent. He received the Thieme Chemistry Journals Award (2022).
His long standing research concentrates on the high value utilization of C1 resources. Based on the creation of catalytic systems, he achieves highly selective synthesis of specific high value products through catalytic carbonylation/cyanation using CO, CO₂ and CN⁻ as C1 sources. He has published more than 60 papers in journals including Science (1 paper), Angewandte Chemie International Edition (9 papers) and ACS Catalysis (4 papers). He holds 8 granted Chinese patents and 2 international patents. He has served as principal investigator of the National High Level Talent Program project, the Cultivation Project of the Major Research Plan and General Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Cooperative Fund of the Institute of Clean Energy Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, key projects of the Enterprise Joint Innovation and Development Fund, and the Basic Research Innovation Group Program of Gansu Province.
Abstract
As the global energy structure adjusts toward diversification, the significance of C1 chemistry is becoming increasingly evident. Taking C1 resources such as CO and CO₂ as platforms to construct a rich and diversified C1 chemical industrial system has become an important field of research and development, and is regarded as the chemistry that creates the future. Among these transformations, carbonylation, which introduces carbonyl groups into organic molecules to afford oxygen containing compounds by catalytic means, is a typical reaction with high atom economy and process economy, and is highly favored by both academia and industry.
Drawing on his background of cross disciplinary research spanning homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, the speaker has expanded research in intersecting fields and designed heterogeneous catalysts with specific coordination structures, using CO and CO₂ as carbonyl sources for carbonylative synthesis of high value multi carbon oxygenated chemicals. In addition to carbonylation, cyanation is also an important transformation in C1 chemistry. In particular, hexamethylenediamine, the polymerization monomer of nylon 66 (the polymer of adipic acid and hexamethylenediamine), is produced by hydrogenation of adiponitrile, yet the mainstream three step butadiene cyanation technology for adiponitrile has long been monopolized by companies such as INVISTA. Source level innovation is therefore crucial. The speaker has organized tripartite collaboration among research institutes, universities and enterprises to conduct research on a highly efficient one step double hydrocyanation of butadiene to adiponitrile, with the aim of providing technical support for the production of key monomers in China’s nylon industry.
Announced by School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.