【Haichuan. Pioneers in the Chemical Industry】29 Gu Yuzhen – A pioneer in China’s oil and fat technology sector

Gu Yuzhen (March 1907–July 1968), styled Yizhen, with the English name Eugene Chen Koo, was originally from Wuxi, Jiangsu. He was born in Baoding, Hebei in 1907, returned to Wuxi in 1917, and graduated from Wuxi Furen Middle School in 1921. He then entered Tsinghua University. In 1927 he went to MIT in the United States – the birthplace of chemical engineering (where the world’s first department of chemical engineering and the first textbook on principles of chemical engineering were created) – and obtained his bachelor’s degree in 1929. In the same year, he entered the graduate school of that institution to conduct research on \"flow and heat transfer of fluids\" under Professor McAdams, an authority in chemical engineering. He proposed a relationship between the friction coefficient of fluid flow in circular pipes and the Reynolds number, known as the \"Gu formula\", which was included in the \"Chemical Engineer’s Handbook\" edited by Perry and in McAdams’ book on heat transfer. This achievement has been recognized by the international academic community, representing one of the outstanding contributions of Chinese scholars in the field of chemical engineering. He received his doctorate in 1932, and together with his several brothers, Gu Yuqi, Gu Yuxiu, Gu Yutong, and Gu Yurui, he became the subject of the famous story of \"a family with five doctors.\" In 1930, he wrote an article titled \"Chemical Engineering\" which was published in the journal of the Chinese Society of Engineers, \"Engineering\", thereby introducing the field of chemical engineering to China in a systematic manner. That same year, he co-founded the Chinese Society of Chemical Engineering with his classmates who had studied in the United States, becoming one of its founders. It was Gu Yuzhen and her peers who studied at MIT under authorities in chemical engineering; upon returning to China with the most advanced concepts and knowledge, they established the field of chemical engineering in China, prompting universities across the country to set up departments of chemical engineering. In 1937, Gu Yuzhen published the article \"Chemical Engineering and the Training of Chemical Engineers,\" in which he proposed for the first time a talent training approach that combined industry, academia, and research. This approach played an important role in addressing the shortage of teaching staff in China’s chemical engineering field and in promoting the development of this discipline.

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In 1933, Gu Yuzhen returned to China and took charge of the chemical analysis laboratory at the Central Industrial Laboratory of the National **Industry Ministry. On December 17, 1934, Gu Yuzhen put forward a highly strategic and forward-thinking view: \"Given our country’s superior agricultural conditions, if we can find ways to make use of them to compensate for the shortcomings of oil reserves, it would indeed be an ideal solution.\" At the same time, he also warned his countrymen that “oil reserves will eventually run out, and once they do, there will be no source of gasoline anymore.” Therefore, producing endless amounts of vegetable oil to use in making gasoline is indeed the most valuable substitute. May the people of this country take precautions and pay attention to it. ”Liquid fuels that can replace petroleum products include motor alcohol, gasoline substitutes derived from vegetable oils, and gasoline produced from coal. Among these, motor alcohol is the preferred substitute for gasoline due to its large supply volume and reliable performance. In 1934, a Chinese alcohol factory was established in Bailianjing, Pudong, Shanghai, and Gu Yuzhen participated in the establishment of the factory as a Chinese expert. Compared to other alcohol factories of the same period, this factory had the most comprehensive facilities and the highest production capacity. Its output was initially 4,000 gallons per day (over 15,000 liters), later increasing to 7,000 gallons per day (about 26,500 liters), with an annual production of 3 million gallons (over 11 million liters), earning it the title of the best in the Far East. At that time, the purpose of the Ministry of Industry in establishing Chinese alcohol factories was, on the one hand, to lay the foundation for a new industry, and on the other hand, to address the issue of self-sufficiency in certain liquid fuels. During the War of Resistance against Japan, due to Japan’s military actions and economic blockades, gasoline imports dropped sharply, while domestic demand continued to rise rapidly. The increasingly severe oil shortage not only posed a serious obstacle to the country’s efforts in fighting against Japan but also had a direct impact on domestic transportation and industrial production. Resolving this oil shortage issue had become an urgent priority. Under such circumstances, the nation established a Liquid Fuel Management Committee in 1938; on the one hand, this committee worked to strengthen oversight of fuel usage, while on the other hand it urged research and development institutions to explore plant-based refining techniques for substances such as alcohol and tung oil as alternatives to gasoline and diesel, in order to facilitate smooth transportation and support the development of both military and civilian industries. While promoting blended alcohol-gasoline fuels, the National Economic Commission at that time established a research committee on cottonseed oil; Gu Yuzhen, as one of its members, worked on ways to use cottonseed oil as a substitute for diesel. From the beginning to the end of 1935, within less than a year, the China Institute of Engineering, in collaboration with the Faculty of Engineering at Central University and Jiangnan Automobile Company, successfully developed a method for using cottonseed oil as a substitute for diesel through processes such as cottonseed oil extraction, modification, and testing. Firstly, the extraction method using light oil and alcohol as solvents replaces the traditional pressing method; the former can achieve an oil content of 90%, which is far higher than the 50% achieved by the latter, resulting in a significant increase in oil production ； Secondly, the thermal cracking method is used to modify the high viscosity, freezing point, and ignition point of cottonseed oil, so as to make it similar to diesel ； Thirdly, a mixture of 30% cottonseed oil and 70% diesel has a freezing point of –12°C, and its viscosity is similar to that of diesel; the test results were very satisfactory. As a model of success, the method developed for replacing diesel with cottonseed oil was extended to other vegetable oils. Since 1934, the China Institute of Chemical Technology, together with academic research institutions such as Central University, Yenching University, Nankai University, Beiyang University, and the Geological Survey Institute, has used various types of vegetable oils to successfully develop four methods for the thermal cracking of vegetable oils: gas-phase decomposition, liquid-phase decomposition, alkaline soap distillation, and catalytic decomposition, achieving an efficiency of 50%. The successful experiment in producing \"gasoline\" through the cracking of vegetable oils opened up a new path for establishing plants to refine gasoline substitutes according to local conditions during wartime, thereby addressing the issue of self-sufficiency in liquid fuels.

After the victory in the War of Resistance, he served as the acting director of the China Institute of Industrial Technology and was in charge of relocating the institute to Nanjing and Shanghai. In 1947, he was transferred to Beiping to establish an Industrial Research Institute and served as its director. In December 1948, he went to Shanghai to take over as the director of the China Institute of Industrial Research. After the liberation of Shanghai in 1949, the China National Research Institute was renamed the Shanghai Industrial Testing Institute of the Central Light Industry Ministry. He resigned from his position to take a job at Tongji University, where he taught courses such as \"Principles of Chemical Engineering\" and \"Industrial Chemistry.\" He also served as a professor at Fudan University, Hujiang University, Wuxi Jiangnan University, and other institutions, teaching courses like \"Principles of Chemical Engineering,\" \"Oil Chemistry,\" and \"Oil Industry.\" During the departmental reorganization in 1952, he went to work at East China University of Chemical Technology, where he served as head of the Teaching and Research Group for Principles of Chemical Engineering and the Teaching and Research Group for Chemical Engineering. In 1956, he was appointed an associate professor, and he was also one of the first four supervisors at that university to recruit candidates for master’s degrees. In order to establish as quickly as possible an independent and comprehensive set of textbooks on oils, fats, and chemical engineering in our country and to genuinely improve the quality of education, he authored and published books such as \"Liquid Fuels,\" \"Oils and Fats Industry,\" \"Preparation of Oils and Fats,\" and \"Chemical Engineering Calculations.\" Among these, \"Chemical Engineering Calculations\" has been reprinted 9 times. In 1957, the book \"Chemical Industry Processes and Equipment\", which he co-authored with professors such as Zhang Hongyuan, became the first national standard textbook on principles of chemical engineering written by Chinese scholars. It has been reprinted many times and, for decades, has served as the main textbook and reference material for teaching these principles. Starting from the late 1950s, he engaged in research on momentum and heat transfer in turbulent flow as well as spouted bed technology, keeping pace with international cutting-edge topics, and served as a pioneer in the fundamental research on \"three transfers and one reaction\" in China. Starting from theory, he proposed ways to enhance heat transfer and applied them directly to industrial production. The two new technologies he proposed, namely multi-stage sparging and sparging with guide tubes, solved the problems associated with drying grains and oils, serving as a model for using theory to guide practical production. In 1964, his book Introduction to Turbulent Heat Transfer was published; Mr. Hou Debang personally wrote a preface for it. This was the first volume in his series of books on chemical engineering. Regrettably, he died unjustly during the Cultural Revolution at the age of 61. In 1987, Mr. Gu Yuzhen’s wrongful conviction was overturned and he was posthumously recognized as a martyr. He made indelible contributions to the establishment and development of oil processing technology and chemical engineering in our country. To commemorate him, in 1988, his students, relatives and friends, as well as relevant social organizations, established the \"Gu Yuzhen Scholarship\" at Tsinghua University.

【Major Publications】 T. B. Drew, E. C. Koo (Gu Yuzhen), W. H. McAdams. 1932. The friction factor for clean round pipes. Transactions Amer. Inst. Chem. Engrs. 28: 56–72. Gu Yuzhen. 1930. Chemical Engineering. Science 14(9): 1325–1345. Li Erkang, Gu Yuzhen, Shi Dekuan. 1933. The process of manufacturing activated carbon. Industrial Center 2(10): 250–258. Gu Yuzhen. 1935. The progress of China’s basic chemical industry. China Industry 1(2): 239–254. Gu Yuzhen. 1935. Considerations on solving China’s liquid fuel problem. China Industry 1(8): 1385–1412. Gu Yuzhen, Zheng Suming. 1935. Experiments on using vegetable oils to produce liquid fuels. China Industry 1(11): 2021–2039. Gu Yuzhen, Fan Jingping. 1935. Methods for calculating the heat value of coal and proposals for new formulas. Industrial Center 4(7): 377–383. Gu Yuzhen. 1935. Basic engineering principles in the chemical industry. Industrial Center 4(8): 408–410. Gu Yuzhen, Du Changming, Lu Guanyi. 1936. Research report on using cottonseed oil as a substitute for diesel. Highway 1(4): 415–426. Gu Yuzhen. 1936. Friction factor of fluids in pipes. Chemical Engineering 3: 3–14. Gu Yuzhen. 1936. Distribution of fluid flow velocity in pipes. Chemical Engineering 3: 91–109. Gu Yuzhen, Wu Shouzhong. 1937. Methods for manufacturing industrial chemicals. Shanghai: Zhengzhong Bookstore. 221 pages. Li Erkang, Gu Yuzhen, Zhou Xingqian. 1937. Research and experiments on manufacturing activated carbon for gas protection. Industrial Center 6(6): 228–243. Gu Yuzhen. 1937. Research on using vegetable oils to produce substitutes for lubricants. Industrial Center 6(7/8): 281–287. Gu Yuzhen. 1937. Experiments on using alcohol as a substitute for gasoline. Industrial Center 6(9/10/11/12): 329–337. Gu Yuzhen. 1939. Liquid fuels. Shanghai: Zhengzhong Bookstore. 183 pages. Gu Yuzhen. 1942. Research and experiments on oils and fats over the past decade. Industrial Center 10(1/2): 1–14. Gu Yuzhen. 1942. Experiments and research on alcohol as a power source over the past decade. Engineering 15(3): 39–53. Gu Yuzhen. 1943. China’s oils and fats industry over the past decade. China Industry 22: 14–18. Gu Yuzhen. 1952. Chemical engineering calculations. Shanghai: China Science Books and Instruments Company. 183 pages. Gu Yuzhen. 1953. The science of oil preparation. Shanghai: China Science Books and Instruments Company. 180 pages. Zhang Hongyuan, Ding Xu-huai, Gu Yuzhen. 1956. Chemical industry processes and equipment (Volume 1). Beijing: Higher Education Press. 277 pages. Zhang Hongyuan, Ding Xu-huai, Gu Yuzhen. 1957. Chemical industry processes and equipment (Volume 2). Beijing: Higher Education Press. 509 pages. Ding Xu-huai, Zhang Hongyuan, Zhang Zhendan, Gu Yuzhen. 1956. Principles and equipment of chemical operations (Volume 1). Shanghai: Shanghai Science and Technology Press. 300 pages. Ding Xu-huai, Zhang Hongyuan, Zhang Zhendan, Gu Yuzhen. 1958. Principles and equipment of chemical operations (Volume 2). Shanghai: Shanghai Science and Technology Press. 424 pages. Gu Yuzhen, Jiang Tiqian, et al. 1960. Momentum and heat transfer in non-Newtonian fluids II. Preliminary report on experiments on heat release in non-Newtonian fluids in vertical pipes. Journal of East China Institute of Chemical Engineering 2: 34–38. Gu Yuzhen, Qin Hongwan. 1961. The oils and fats industry. Shanghai: Shanghai Science and Technology Press. 74 pages. Gu Yuzhen. 1963. Research on drying grains using spouted beds — Analysis of drying data during the deceleration stage. Chemical World 1: 41–44. Gu Yuzhen. 1964. Introduction to turbulent heat transfer (Series on Chemical Engineering). Shanghai: Shanghai Science and Technology Press. 222 pages