AWARDEE OF CHEMISTRY PRIZE

TONG ZHENHE

Professor Chen-Ho Tung (Tong Zhenhe), an organic chemist, was born in 1937 in Shandong Province of China, and graduated in 1963 from the Polymer Department, University of Science and Technology of China. He worked in this Department as a chemistry teacher in the years of 1963-1974, and then moved into the Institute of Photographic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) as a research associate. In 1979 he was sent by the Chinese Government to the U.S. to seek Ph.D. degree in the Department of Chemistry, Columbia University in New York City. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1983, and then returned to the Institute of Photographic Chemistry. He used to be deputy director and director of the Institute of Photographic Chemistry. He was elected as an academician of CAS in 1999. Now he is a professor of the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry of CAS, the institute of Chemistry of CAS and Tsinghua University.
Dr. Tong Zhenhe’s main research achievements are as follows:
1. Successful control of the product selectivity of a variety of photochemical reactions by using the cavities of macrocyclic hosts, molecular aggregates, and the cavities and surfaces of microporous solids as microreactors. For example, he synthesized a series of large-ring compounds in high yields under high substrate concentrations in microreactors. In the photosensitized oxidation of alkenes, he could direct the oxidation selectively toward either the singlet oxygen mediated or the superoxide radical anion mediated products by controlling the status and location of the substrate and sensitizer molecules in the reaction media.
2. Providing a series of evidences for photoinduced intramolecular long-distance electron transfer and energy transfer via “through-bond” mechanism. He utilized androstene skeleton and crown ether moiety as a bridge to link donor-acceptor groups, and investigated photoinduced intramolecular triplet energy transfer and electron transfer within these systems. He demonstrated that electron transfer and triplet energy transfer processes occur with reasonably large rate constants via a “through-bond” mechanism, although the donor and acceptor are separated as far as by ca. 20. He also assembled a series of donor-sensitizer-accepter systems and obtained long-lived photoinduced charge-separation.
3. Demonstration of aggregation and self-coiling of organic molecules driven by hydrophobic and lipophobic interactions. He provided a series of evidences for aggregate formation and self-coiling of molecules with non-polar chains in mixed organic-aqueous solvents. He also demonstrat-ed that molecules with polar regions tend to associate and self-coiling in non-polar solvents. The driven force in the later case is lipophobic interactions. He provided the first example to apply lipophobic interactions to expediting the formation of macrocyclic entities.
Dr. Tong has published over 150 papers, among which 1 in Acc. Chem. Res., and 9 in J. Am. Chem. Soc. Twenty six graduate students obtained their Ph. D. degree under the supervision of Professor Tong and ten of them are the winners of the Presidential Award of CAS.