Hou Debang

Who was Hou Debang?

Hou Debang, also known as Hou Qirong, was a scientist and chemical engineer in China. He was born 9 August 1890 in Taijiang District of Fuzhou and died 26 August 1974 in Beijing. Graduating from Tsinghua University in 1912, Hou was one of the scholars sent to the United States to study modern technologies. He obtained his master's degree in chemical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and later obtained his doctoral degree at Columbia University.

From 1950, Hou Debang served as a consultant in the chemical industry bureau of the Ministry of Heavy Industry. In 1957 he joined the Communist Party of China and in 1959 was appointed deputy minister of the Ministry of Chemical Industry. Among Hou's discoveries was his 1933 improvement to the Solvay process for producing sodium carbonate.

On August 26, 1974, already ill from leukemia, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died.