J. Y. Zhu

Junyong (J.Y.) Zhu is a ST Scientist at the USDA Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, WI, USA. He is a Fellow of TAPPI, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, International Academy of Wood Science, and Member of the American Chemical Society and American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Early life and education Born in Kunshan, Jiangsu, China, Zhu graduated from Tinglin High School. The school was named after the famous Chinese historian, philologist, and poet Gu Yanwu, a Kunshan native. He then attended Beijing Institute of Aeronautics Beihang University and majored in thermal power engineering. Upon graduation, Zhu went abroad and received his Ph.D. from the University of California - Irvine.

Research career After a brief stay in a high tech defense firm in the Silicon Valley, Zhu shifted away from his graduate major as a result of a deep recession right after the first gulf war and joined the Institute of Paper Science and Technology, Atlanta, GA, as an assistant professor in November 1993 in pulping chemical recovery. He was promoted to associate professor in 1999. Zhu left the Institute and joined the USDA Forest Products Laboratory in February 2003 as the Project Leader of Fiber Processes and Products Research Unit. Zhu was promoted to his current ST grade (the highest grade with limited number of slots in the US Federal government) in 2024.

Research and development Zhu's work focuses on forest biomass preprocessing for biochemical conversion to fibers, sugars/biofuels, chemicals, and a variety of wood and wood based products. His accomplishments included:

The invention and development of the sulfite based woody biomass pretreatment process (SPORL) for scalable and highly effective conversion of woody biomass to fermentable sugars. The SPORL process was successfully scaled-up to process 50 tons of forest residue and produced 5000 gallons of ASTM (D7566) certified sustainable aviation biofuel (SAF), which enabled the world-first successfully woody SAF commercial flight from Seattle to Washington DC by Alaska Airlines (Flight No. AS04) on November 14, 2016. This SAF flight was reported by several news outlets such as Seattle KIRO 7, The Smithsonian Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, The Denver Post.

Sustainable production of cellulose nanomaterials This work included nearly doubling the yield of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) by the commonly used concentrated sulfuric acid hydrolysis. The work was featured on the cover of 2014 US National Nanotechnology Initiative – Supplement to the President's Budget which established the largest cellulose nanomaterials research program in the U.S.

Zhu's other notable work are: the discovery of acid hydrotropic phenomenon for rapid delignification at low temperatures (< 100C).; pH-mediated electrostatic interaction between cellulase and lignin to substantially decrease no productive cellulase binding to lignin, which increased enzymatic saccharification yield by approximately 15% using conventional lignocellulosic substrates and nearly 100% for substrates with esterification including sulfonation

Recognitions J.Y. Zhu received many awards and honors, including: USDA Forest Service R&D Distinguished Science Award, 2013; TAPPI Int. R&D Technical Award and Aiken Prize, 2014; The Fulbright-Aalto University Distinguished Chair Scholarship, 2016; AIChE Andrew Chase Award, 2016; IUFRO Scientific Achievement Award, 2019; USDA Forest Service Chief's Award, 2019; USDA Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment Honor Award, 2019.