"In the past ten years, the government has given more and more support to scientific researchers, and the clear guidance and correct path have made me more and more motivated in S&T achievements transformation." Speaking of the state's policy incentives for scientific and technological talents, Wang Lei, a professor at the School of Environment and Municipal Engineering of XUAT and the president of Shaanxi Membrane Separation Technology Research Institute, expressed his emotion.

This is closely related to his special experience. The conversation with Wang Lei always revolves around membrane separation technology. This is an emerging technology that uses separation membranes as the core to separate, concentrate, and purify substances. It not only has functions such as separation, concentration, purification, and refinement, but also has characteristics such as high efficiency, energy conservation, and environmental protection.

During his study abroad in Japan, Wang Lei participated in the world's largest membrane technology research project and witnessed the enormous potential of this technology in fields such as bio-medicine, environmental protection and chemical engineering, new energy, and water treatment.

In 2002, Wang Lei returned from his studies and, an innovative team for membrane separation technology was established relying on the advantageous disciplines of the university. At the beginning of team formation, we insisted on not taking paper publication or patent application as the end of scientific research, but instead trying to convert patent achievements into production technology as much as possible to meet the actual needs of the industry.

In view of the water shortage, water pollution and the abundance of scarce resources in salt lakes in northwest China, the team focused on the development of high-performance ultrafiltration, microfiltration, nanofiltration, forward osmosis and other separation membrane products and equipment, and expanded their applications in water purification, deep regeneration, recycling, medical devices and other fields. In 2012, the team's achievements were transformed in Suzhou, with outstanding economic and social benefits.

“The government was encouraging scientific researchers to transform their achievements and called on them not to stay in the laboratory, but to get their academic achievements implemented to make contribution to the " Wang Lei said. But, no one knew how to transfer, we had to look before leap.

In 2015, the National People's Congress revised the Law of the PRC Science & Technology Achievement Transform; In 2016, the State Council issued Several Provisions on the Implementation of the Law of the PRC Science & Technology Achievement Transform, which systematically and explicitly liberalized scientific research autonomy related to the transformation of scientific and technological achievements.

It is these policies that have given me the confidence to challenge the 'no-man's land', "Wang Lei said. The most crucial point in the transformation of achievements is the pricing of patented technologies. The above policies have clearly defined the ownership of scientific and technological achievements, with how much to allocate to scientific research teams and how much to allocate to research institutes and platforms. This way, there will be no intellectual property issues in the subsequent transformation of achievements, and researchers will no longer have any concerns.

Nowadays, new energy vehicles have been introduced into countless households, but few people think about where the lithium in the lithium-ion batteries widely used in new energy vehicles comes from. In fact, over 70% of global lithium is extracted from mineral rich salt lakes.

In order to firmly grasp the "lifeline" of the country in his own hands, in 2017, under the support of the Department of Science and Technology of Shaanxi, Wang Lei's team established the Shaanxi Membrane Separation Technology Research Institute to conduct basic research and technological development around membrane separation science and technology, providing a common technology platform for industrialization.

In September of that year, Wang Lei led his team to build the first pilot station in the "unmanned area" of Lenghu in Qinghai. In December, the pilot production line was successfully put into operation, which reduced the cost of extracting Lithium carbonate by more than half with the traditional method. The economy and environmental protection reached world advanced level, providing a strong technical support for the development of precious metals in China.

Long term practice has proved that the key to Wang Lei's team's leaping from original innovation to industrialization lies in the deep integration mode of innovation chains and industry chains of "Research Institute+Company+Seed Fund". In Wang Lei's view, the previous stages of theoretical verification, pilot testing, funding, and marketization were relatively independent and required coordination back and forth, with high uncertainty. No matter which stage went wrong, it could lead to marketization failure, which is also the most difficult part of the transformation from innovation chain to industrial chain. After repeated exploration, we successfully got through these links.

In just five years, Xi'an Gold-In Membrane Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd., an enterprise incubated by Wang Lei and his team, solved the key technical problem of extracting precious metals from salt lake brine, and built several Lithium carbonate production lines in Lenghu, Qaidam, Golmud and other places in Qinghai Province, greatly reducing the cost of lithium extraction. The value of core technology has been fully reflected in the market.

“In the future, we will continue to adhere to the 'four orientations', closely integrate with the development trend of global polymer membrane materials, strengthen talent cultivation, continuously improve our independent innovation capabilities, deepen industrial cooperation, establish a number of industry university research innovation bases, use technological innovation to serve economic and social development, and strive to make greater contributions”, said Wang Lei.