Prof. Chen Jun, dean of College of Chemistry of Nankai University, was elected to the academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is the youngest academician among the selectees according to the results released from the Chinese Academy of Sciences on Nov. 28th.

Chen Jun, an inorganic chemist, served as a professor of Nankai University and doctoral supervisor from 2002. He is currently the dean of College of Chemistry and the director of Key Laboratory of Advanced Energy Materials Chemistry (Ministry of Education). He was born in September 1967 in Susong county, Anhui province. He joint the Communist Party of China in December 1988. Chen studied in the chemistry department of Nankai University during 1985 to 1992 and was awarded the bachelor’s degree and master’s degree successively. He stayed for work in Nankai University in1992. From 1996 to 1999, he studied in the materials department of Wollongong University (Australia) with a doctorate degree. From 1999 to 2002, he was a research fellow in Japanese New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) at the Osaka Institute of Industrial Technology, Japanese Industrial Technology Institute.

Prof. Chen Jun is mainly engaged in the research of inorganic solid chemistry. He has made important and innovative contribution to the synthesis of inorganic solid functional materials, the preparation of solid electrode and the development of new battery electrode materials. He put forward the "room temperature – redox - crystal transformation" new synthetic methods and synthesized the stable conductive nano-spinel in the room temperature, replacing the precious metal platinum electrodes and used in the rechargeable lithium-air and zinc-air batteries systems. He also proposed that the micro-nano electrodes can significantly improve the reaction activity and structure stability of the multi-electrons reactions. He performed a large number of experiments for micro-nano hierarchical electrode structures of rechargeable lithium, sodium, magnesium batteries. This design has enhanced the security of the batteries and reduced the battery electrode material cost, providing a new way of solving the battery burning explosion. The research of porous spinel and laminated electrode materials has been applied.

So far, he has published 290 papers, in which the series of Nature and Science 5 papers, Angew. Chem. 16 papers, the journal of the American Chemical Society 10 papers, Advanced Materials 17papers. The total citations are 21000 times and the highest citations for one paper are1130 times. He wrote review papers for the Accounts of Chemical Research in 2009 and for the Chemical Reviews in 2017. And he has been authorized 16 invention patents, of which the patent of porous spinel and laminated electrode materials has achieved good economic benefits.

 Chen has received many awards and honorary titles. He presided over the "Hydrogen, lithium, magnesium storage and battery performance research of certain categories of inorganic materials" he presided over has won the second prize of national award for natural sciences (2011). "Clean energy materials and high-energy chemical powers" and "Micro-nano structures and electrochemical energy devices" has won the first prize of Tianjin award for natural sciences in 2006 and 2016 respectively. He was awarded "New Century Excellent Talents"(Ministry of Education) in 2002, “The National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars” in 2003, distinguished professor of “Chang Jiang Scholars Program”(Ministry of Education) in 2005, the first prize of “National Teaching Achievement Award” in 2009, “Chinese Electrochemical Contribution Award” and the nomination of the top grade prize of the “Baogang Award for Outstanding Teachers” in 2013, “Leader in Science and Technology Innovation Talents” in 2014. He presided over the key national nanotechnology research and development plan in 2011 and 2017 as chief scientist.

Chen is the member of Chinese Chemical Society, the director of Chinese Society of Electrochemistry, director of Tianjin Chemical Society, deputy director of the Institute of Hydrogen Energy Storage of Chinese Renewable Energy Institute and Energy Storage Branch of Chinese Society of Instrument and Materials, fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is the deputy editor of the Inorganic Chemistry Frontiers and Applied Chemistry. He is the international editorial advisory board member of Solid State Sciences, ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng., ACS Energy Lett., J. Energy Chem., Nano Research Science China: Materials, Acta Chimica Sinica, Acta Physico-Chimica Sinica, electrochemistry, power supply technology and other journals.