【Pioneer of HaiChuan Chemical Industry】New China’s first invention certificate awarded to scientist Hou Debang

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At the exhibition \"The Right Path Is One of Change and Evolution – A History of China’s Nanjing\" located at No. 1 Dujiang Road, there is on display the \"First Invention Certificate of New China\", issued in 1953. A thin certificate, through a small cutout, reflects a magnificent history of modern chemical industry in China; it is a milestone in China’s petrochemical industry. The inventor of this technology was the renowned scientist Hou Debang, who was the director of Yongli Tungsten Factory, the predecessor of Nanhua Company. A relevant official from Nanhua Company told reporters the story behind this invention certificate. Going back to 1937, as the Japanese invading forces approached Nanjing, the Yongli Tin Factory (the predecessor of Nanhua Company) was brutally bombed. Factory director Hou Debang led the workers to relocate to Sichuan against great difficulty in order to establish a new basic chemical industry base. Acids and bases are essential basic raw materials in the production of chemical products. The main raw material for soda production is table salt. But in Sichuan, well salt is of poor quality at high prices; the existing alkali production methods are not suitable, and there is no certainty regarding the new European alkali production methods. Hou Debang decided to explore new methods for producing soda ash. Under difficult conditions, he repeatedly conducted basic experiments on aspects such as reaction temperature, the order of adding raw materials, and the ratio of raw materials. During this phase, nearly 500 tests were conducted and more than 2,000 samples were analyzed, generating a large amount of data; as a result, a new method for producing alkali was developed. This new process increased the utilization rate of table salt from 70% to 96% all at once. To honor Hou Debang’s contributions to the development of a new method for producing soda ash, on March 15, 1941, a factory meeting was held at the Yongli Soda Ash Factory, and all employees unanimously agreed that the new method should be named the “Hou Method”. Hou Debang was not satisfied with the achievements he had already made; he sought a more ideal method for producing soda ash, aiming to integrate the soda ash production industry with the ammonia synthesis industry. As a result, an ammonia-soda ash production process that was completely different from the Thiele process was developed – the \"Hou process\". “The \"Hou’s alkali method\" led to the development of a production process for soda ash, and \"three acids and two alkalis\" serve as fundamental industrial raw materials that are widely used in the manufacture of various industrial products. On July 1, 1953, the Central Administration for Industry and Commerce issued an invention certificate for the \"Hou’s alkali process\", which was the first invention certificate in New China. Since the 1960s, the ammonia-soda ash combined soda production process has been widely adopted in China’s soda ash industry, and today the combined soda production method, which is one of the \"Hou’s soda production methods\", remains an advanced technology in the international soda production sector.