Translated by Yueting Lin

Chemical Reviews, the most authoritative review publication in the international field of chemistry, in its latest issue, published two overview papers written respectively by Professor Yang Guowei and Professor Shen Peikang’s research teams/groups from School of Physics & Engineering at SYSU, referenced to the significant progress they have made in the aspects of “Nano-material Physics and Chemistry” and “direct alcohol fuel cells”.

The research group chaired by Yang Guowei has been dedicated to the studying of “Nano-material Physics and Chemistry” and established a universal thermodynamic theory about the surface and interface energy of nano-material system, which is based on nano-thermodynamics and continuum mechanics, developed the calculation method of the surface and interface energy which based on the theory, and revealed a series of effects with nano-scale caused by the surface and interface acts. These research findings had been published on important publications including Small, Applied Physics Letters and Physical Reviews B, attracting wide attention from the international profession. The group had been invited by the Chemical Reviews, the most authoritative review publication in the international field of chemistry, to write an overview paper about the “Surface Energy of Nanostructures with Negatives Curvature and Related Size-effects”, which was published in the 9th issue of 2009 (Chemical Reviews 109 (9), 4221-4247 (2009)).

The research group chaired by Professor Shen Peikang has been engaged in electrochemical research, whose major research directions are direct alcohol fuel cells, hydrogen/oxygen fuel cells and the related key materials. They have published 134 research papers since 2004, that have been cited for more than 400 times just in this year. In particular, the group has made a series of great progress in the study of palladium-based electrocatalyst in the past few years, published dozens of papers of advance standard in the internationally renowned academic journals and made a great impact in the international field of chemistry. Thus the Chemical Reviews invite them to write an overview paper centering on the “Palladium-based electrocatalysts for alcohol oxidation in half cells and in direct alcohol fuel cells”, which was published in the 9th issue of 2009 (Chemical Reviews 109 (9), 4183-4206 (2009)).