I'm Dusan Losic, Professor of the University of Adelaide, School of Chemical Engineering Australia, and I received the prestigious CAS PIFI fellowship award (2017VEA0009) submitted by Prof. Peng Yuan to come to Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, CAS for cooperative research on the functional modification technologies of natural porous minerals. During my time in Guangzhou and CAS I had the opportunity to take part in many research and personal activities at the Institute and around the city that made my visit and CAS Fellowship enormously memorable and valuable.

From scientific perspectives I met many excellent researchers and had very useful discussions about collaboration opportunities on using natural nanomaterials and minerals (e.g., halloysite and diatomite) to make new composites for useful industrial products. In working in collaboration with Prof. Yuan we discussed several new potential projects to combine graphene and other 2d materials with clays for environmental applications, which were closely related to our existing research activities with halloysites.  I was pleased that my lectures at the Institute were well received and initiated many new ideas for future collaborative explorations. I also visited the CAS Institute’s research facilities for materials characterization and learned about their use, applications and related challenges.

Most of my time was spent with Prof. Peng Yuan’s research group and allowed very strong interaction with PhD students and postdocs, a very enjoyable and also valuable experience for me in many ways.  I worked with PhD students to help their understanding of doing science, experiments, and writing journal papers which is a particularly difficult task for them because of language barriers. To compare them with students in my research group I found the students here are much more dedicated to doing research and projects and work much harder. I also had an opportunity to spend time with students outside of the Institute at lunches and dinners and really enjoyed our very open and relaxed talks as I got to know their life stories, dreams, expectations and hobbies. Having the hospitality, care and friendliness of these students around me all the time gave me all the help I needed in terms of accommodation, meals, phone problems, banks, and computers; it was just amazing and I had never had such an experience before.

I also had an opportunity to go with Prof. Yuan, other academics and students to visit Guangzhou city and many restaurants to enjoy delicious food I never experienced before. I found Guangzhou city to be very impressive and I was surprised to see such modern architecture, designs, lights shows, beautiful parks and large shops I couldn’t see in other places around the globe. I visited Shamian, an old city and traditional Chinese market, and enjoyed very much seeing the old and traditional China. I didn’t have much opportunity for shopping, but I will do that next time for sure.

From a personal perspective I met my daughter-in-law’s family here for the first time. They live in Guangzhou and we spent a memorable time together and had several dinners. This family union, which we shared with photographs, was very exciting for my son and my family in Australia.

To conclude, this was a terrific trip and life experience for me in many ways and I am so grateful to CAS for giving me this award and opportunity. Most importantly collaboration with Prof. Peng Yuan and his team will continue in future and we expect more joint collaborative projects, student exchanges and grant applications.

Once again I would like to thank the CAS panel for giving me this Presidential Fellowship.

Source: Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry