Youthful Glory, Silk Road Chasing Light | Lanzhou University Professor Peng Peng: The 'Deputy Chief Technology Officer' Who Walked Out of the Lab
How long does it take to achieve a breakthrough in a product technology? Professor Peng Peng from the School of Materials and Energy at Lanzhou University provided an answer within three years.
Over these three years, he led his team from the laboratory to the production line, using hot-dip galvanized aluminum-zinc-magnesium sheet and strip technology as a lever to propel the product upgrade of JISCO, a major industrial enterprise in Northwest China. Since the technology was launched in 2023, JISCO has become the first domestic company to master this technology, with an annual output value of billions of yuan and annual profits of tens of millions of yuan.
From a university teacher to an enterprise's deputy chief technology officer, Peng Peng has made a brilliant transformation of his role on the production front, blazing a solid path for school-enterprise cooperation from paper to practice. On June 7, the 'Youthful Glory, Silk Road Chasing Light' online themed activity interview team conducted a special interview with him, guided by the Cyberspace Administration of China's Network Communication Bureau, co-hosted by the Gansu Provincial Cyberspace Administration, Gansu Provincial Department of Education, and Gansu Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League, with special support from the China Internet Development Foundation, and organized by Hexi University, Zhangye Municipal Cyberspace Administration, and China Gansu Net.
From Laboratory to Production Front: The 'Landing' of a Technology
In 2013, Peng Peng returned to his hometown and began teaching at Lanzhou University. At that time, the university's metal materials discipline was still in its infancy. He started from the School of Physics, groping in confusion for a direction. It was not until the School of Materials and Energy was established in 2021, and with the support of the school's efforts and the national medium- and long-term loan project for universities the following year, that a batch of internationally advanced equipment settled in the laboratory, laying the hardware foundation for materials processing research.
In 2021, Gansu Province proposed to support leading enterprises in forming innovation consortia. During an exchange presentation, JISCO threw out a long-standing problem: the hot-dip galvanized aluminum-zinc-magnesium sheet and strip process needed improvement to solve surface quality issues like 'color difference' and subsequent corrosion problems.
'At that time, although JISCO mastered the basic production process, the instability of corrosion resistance had long plagued the company,' Peng Peng said frankly about the origin of the cooperation. 'Improving corrosion resistance became the key to breaking through market competition.'
He found that his research direction was highly aligned with the enterprise's needs, and JISCO promptly extended an olive branch. With the support of the university's 'Cuiying Postdoctoral' support plan, Peng Peng quickly assembled a team of over 10 members, including veteran craftsmen with years of experience in metal materials and young research backbone.
After in-depth investigation of the plant, the team found that the root cause lay in the need for more precise control of post-coating cooling on the current production line, while company personnel had previously paid little attention to the solidification behavior of the coating during cooling. Peng Peng led the team to act quickly—using laboratory directional solidification technology to replicate the production line cooling process, conducting full-process research from composition design, cooling rate, to microstructure characterization.
From the laboratory to the production front, Peng Peng found the actual situation far more complex than imagined. The laboratory environment is ideal and controllable, while the production line has long processes and many variables. Among hundreds of procedures, equipment errors, parameter settings, and operator actions all affect final performance. 'In the lab, many factors can be ignored, but on-site control is much more difficult,' he said.
To bridge the gap, he began frequent trips, often choosing 'depart in the evening, arrive in the morning' sleeper trains to save daytime communication time. Peng Peng said, 'We must go to the production front more often, and continuously disassemble, debug, and optimize specific problems exposed on site, ensuring every link is seamless.'
Through long-term cooperation, the two sides gradually established a full-process closed-loop collaboration model of 'plant survey—experimental analysis—production line debugging—reverse optimization.' This model acted like a precise conversion engine, driving efficient transformation of research results into industrial benefits.
After three years of effort, Peng Peng's team significantly improved the corrosion resistance of the zinc-aluminum-magnesium coating products by optimizing solidification conditions, and also improved surface quality. According to team statistics, 'the corrosion resistance of the coating is increased to 1.5 to 2 times that of similar products, achieving net profits of tens of millions of yuan.' Customer response exceeded expectations, and JISCO stood out in market competition with this breakthrough.
From Technical Consultant to Deputy Chief Technology Officer: An Upgrade of Role
In May this year, Peng Peng's identity was upgraded again—from 'technical consultant' to 'deputy chief technology officer,' assigned to JISCO Group's Hongxing Hongyu New Materials Co., Ltd., which accounts for half of the group's steel output.
'The core lies in the adjustment of research direction,' Peng Peng said. 'Previously, I worked on titanium-aluminum and nickel-based superalloys, focusing on basic theoretical research and cutting-edge exploration; now I have shifted to traditional industries like steel, because I found that enterprises have a more urgent need for key technologies.'
'In the past, enterprises came to me with needs, and I helped solve problems. Now, with the identity at JISCO, I must actively discover pain points that enterprises themselves haven't even articulated,' Peng Peng indicated. The 'deputy chief technology officer' is not only a technical consultant but also a bridge and bond for school-enterprise cooperation. This role prompts experts to shift from passive response to active identification of enterprise pain points, deepening the integration of education, science and technology, and talent.
Enterprise production is very different from university research. The production line cannot stop for a moment. During this year's Spring Festival, he received calls almost daily from the factory's technical leaders. 'Out of ten communications in school-enterprise cooperation, two or three successes are already hard,' he said. 'Precisely because it's difficult, we must take the initiative to step out of campus and integrate into industry.'
Every time he takes students to the production line, Peng Peng insists on 'being on the scene.' 'Metal materials is a highly engineering-oriented discipline; students must go to the production front to see. The conditions on the production side determine whether the material can ultimately be used, used well, and accepted by the market.'
Initially, some students didn't understand—compared to a quiet and comfortable laboratory, the roaring factory, climbing up and down the production lines, and the environment that is extremely cold in winter and scorching in summer were obviously harder. Some students complained: 'We not only have to climb up and down the production line, but also go there in very cold winter and stay in the scorching heat to record data.' But seeing tangible results from their efforts, everyone increasingly recognized this approach of 'bringing the classroom to the production line.'
When teaching undergraduate courses such as 'Mechanical Properties of Materials' and 'Metal Materials Science,' Peng Peng insists on integrating real cases from his research into the teaching, allowing students to more clearly understand the application scenarios and value of knowledge. 'Industrial research feeds back into talent cultivation—this is a major feature of the combination of school and enterprise,' he said.
This cooperation paradigm oriented toward enterprise production fronts is radiating to broader fields: collaborating with Jinchuan Group to develop superalloys for key aerospace components; cooperating with Shanghai Electric's wind power department to study the fatigue performance of metal materials in extreme -30°C environments and establish service life verification standards; working with Northern Rare Earth to provide alloy composition optimization solutions, breaking international monopolies with scientific data... Such cooperation continues to expand.
From a university teacher to an enterprise's deputy chief technology officer, Professor Peng Peng and his team have shortened the distance between industry, academia, and research with their footsteps. Today, he and his students still frequently travel between Lanzhou and Jiayuguan, taking root and growing on the production front, enabling more achievements to move from the laboratory to the production line and to a broader world.
(All accompanying photos in the article are provided by the interviewee.)
