A record high! 15 Qingdao achievements won National Science and Technology Awards

http://qdstc.qingdao.gov.cn/kjdt/bskjdt/202407/t20240702_8109856.shtml

The 2023 National Science and Technology Awards were announced in Beijing. From a total of 262 projects and candidates,15 achievements in Qingdao won the National Science and Technology Award

Qingdao hosted and completed 2 award-winning projects, participated in the completion of 13 award-winning projects – Including 1 special prize, 1 first prize, 11 second prizes.

5 of the award-winning Qingdao projects are in the maritime field, namely:

“Key Technology Equipment and Application of Deep Sea Image Detection”
Offshore Petroleum Engineering (Qingdao) Co., Ltd. participated in and completed the “‘Shenhai No. 1’ ultra-deepwater gas field development project key technology and application” project, which won the first prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award
“Construction and Industrial Application of Precision Nutrition Technology System for Marine Cultured Fishes” led by the Ocean University of China and participated by the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences.
“Theoretical and Technological Innovation and Major Discovery of Deep Oil and Gas Exploration in Fault Zones” project, and the
“Key Technologies and Applications for Beach Protection and Restoration of Complex Coastal Environments” participated by Ocean University of China won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award.

In addition, Qingdao’s participation in award-winning projects has high “gold content” and broad influence. Among them, the “Fuxing High-Speed Train” project completed by CRRC Qingdao Sifang Rolling Stock Co., Ltd. and CRRC Qingdao Sifang Rolling Stock Research Institute Co., Ltd. won the special prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award. The “Fuxing” high-speed train is a new generation of high-speed train independently developed by China and with complete intellectual property rights. With a maximum speed of 350 kilometers per hour, China has become the country with the fastest commercial operation of high-speed rail in the world. This record remains to this day. As of the beginning of this year, the “Fuxing” high-speed train has transported more than 2.2 billion passengers.

Enterprise innovation is the fundamental driving force and internal source of innovation. Among the Qingdao award-winners, 9 projects have enterprises taking the lead in completing and deeply participating in them. For example, the “Technological Innovation and Industrialization of Temperature and Humidity Oxygen Magnetic Multi-dimensional Precision Control of Household Preservation Appliances” project led by Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd. and participated by Qingdao Haier Refrigerator Co., Ltd. won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award; Tsingtao Brewery Co., Ltd. The project “Efficient Breeding and Optimization of Key Technologies and Applications of Food Biomanufacturing Industrial Strain”, as the main completion unit, won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award.

more insights

Green Carbon Journal: call for submissions

Green Carbon is a Quarterly Scientific Open Access Journal published by KeAi and Elsevier https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/green-carbon

The editorial office is located at the CAS Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Environmental Technology, Qingdao, China. The international advisory board has 55 members, including 23 from Europe.

Since September 2093, it has published 108 articles through 9 issues.

Special issue topics included

Green biomanufacturing
Green chemical catalysis
Green photoelectric catalysis
C1 conversion
Green carbon biomanufacturing

Green Carbon is indexed by CAS, SCOPUS (immediate citescore: 14,9), DOAJ, and under full editorial evaluation for inclusion in the ESCI index.

Until now and probably throughout 2026, Green Carbon operates an APC policy free-of-charge

Beyond a journal, Green Carbon, through its host institute CAS QIBEBT, has developed into an international academic exchange platform, which has hosted recent conferences on Green Carbon, Phototrophic Prokaryotes, Clostridia and more, see http://english.qibebt.cas.cn

For further information, consult with the Green Carbon website https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/green-carbon or with the Green Carbon Offices in Germany through https://window-to-china.de/green_carbon/

A new Fischer-Tropsch route which eliminates CO2 formation

https://en.people.cn/n3/2025/1031/c90000-20384954.html

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea0774

A group at Peking University has developed technology that almost completely eliminates carbon dioxide by-products during Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS), offering a new route to green syngas conversion and low-carbon chemical manufacturing. FTS converts the syngas of carbon dioxide and hydrogen into liquid fuels or high-value chemicals such as olefins. It serves as the pivotal bridge for turning coal, natural gas, biomass and other carbon resources into fuels and value-added chemicals.

The researchers have used a sodium-modified FeC_x@Fe₃O₄ core-shell catalyst coupling water-gas shift (WGS) with syngas-to-olefins (STO) to convert water into hydrogen in situ. HAE reaches about 66 to 83%, exceeding that of methanol-to-olefins (MTO, 50% upper limit). The approximately 95% carbon monoxide conversion and >75% olefin selectivity were simultaneously obtained. The coupling effect was validated by isotope tracing with deuterium oxide and blocking the WGS pathway, and the contribution of WGS was quantitatively evaluated. These results, using lower hydrogen to carbon monoxide ratios, implied that reducing steam consumption in the WGS reaction and reducing the overall output of carbon dioxide and wastewater enabled a sustainable STO process for potential industrialization.

An automated digital colony picker monitors growth and metabolite production, eliminating the need for culturing cells

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63929-7

http://english.cas.cn/newsroom/research_news/life/202510/t20251014_1089412.shtml

The group around Jian XU from the CAS Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) has developed a fully automated “Digital Colony Picker” (DCP). This device identifies and retrieves high-performance microbial clones by simultaneously monitoring their growth and metabolite production—eliminating the need for culture plates, sampling needles, or manual picking.

Designed for the “design-build-test-learn” framework widely adopted in synthetic biology, the DCP streamlines the traditionally slow, labor-intensive “test” phase into a fast, parallel workflow with little hands-on time. It has a microfluidic chip containing 16,000 addressable microchambers that isolate single cells and track their expansion into micro-colonies. An integrated AI engine conducts time-lapse analysis of both brightfield and biosensor signals to quantify growth kinetics and metabolite production in real time. Once target colonies are identified, a laser-induced bubble technique exports them as droplets directly into standard culture plates. This contact-free transfer minimizes cross-contamination and preserves cell viability.

The equipment which was tested for identifying high-yield or lactate-tolerant Zymomonas mobilis mutants is broadly applicable to adaptive evolution studies, functional gene discovery, and phenotype screening across diverse microbial species.

Back to …

青岛 Qingdao
a hub for S&T