Huang Weiyuan

Huang Weiyuan (; December 15, 1921 – November 17, 2015) was a Chinese organic chemist and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He served as President of the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry and President of the Chinese Chemical Society.

Early life and education Huang was born in Putian, Fujian, China on December 15, 1921. He graduated from Fukien Christian University in 1943 with a bachelor's degree in chemistry. After earning his MS in 1949 from Lingnan University in Guangzhou, he entered Harvard University and received his Ph.D. in 1952. His graduate advisor was the organic chemist Louis Fieser.

Career Huang joined the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC), Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1955. In 1958, he responded to the demand of Chinese defense industry, stopped his established organic natural product research work and pursued research in the field of organofluorine chemistry. Under his leadership, the major base for organofluorine chemistry in China was established at the SIOC. This reaction opens a new and practical way for perfluoroalkylation of unsaturated substrates such as alkenes alkynes and aromatics compounds with sulfinatodehalogenation reagents. This reaction is well documented internationally and he won the Second-class Award of National Natural Science in 1986.

Huang received broad recognition from international chemistry community. He was elected as bureau member of IUPAC (1985-1993). He was awarded the Moissan Medal in 1986 at the conference "Centenary of the Discovery of Fluorine" in Paris. He was the co-chairman of 17th international symposium of fluorine chemistry in 2003.

Death Huang died in the United States on November 17, 2015, aged 93.