Invited by the School of Chemistry and Materials Science of Nanjing Normal University and the Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Long-Duration Energy Storage Technology, Professor Ye Yuan of Northeast Normal University visited the School on July 17, 2026, for academic exchange and delivered an academic lecture entitled “Ion-Imprinted Porous Framework Materials” in Conference Room 224 of Huaxing Building. The event was hosted by Professor Hanjun Sun and attended by faculty members and students of the School.
        Professor Ye Yuan is a doctoral supervisor. He has published more than 90 SCI-indexed papers in journals including Nature Chemistry, Nature Water, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Advanced Materials, and Angewandte Chemie International Edition. He serves as an editorial board member or young editorial board member for Chinese Chemical Letters, Nano Research, Acta Physico-Chimica Sinica, Chinese Journal of Applied Chemistry, Journal of Molecular Science, and Uranium Mining and Metallurgy. In 2023, he received the Excellent Young Scientists Fund from the National Natural Science Foundation of China. In 2025, he received the Major Scientific Research Project of the Jilin Provincial Department of Education, the Jilin Provincial Distinguished Young Scientists Fund, and the First Prize of the Jilin Provincial Natural Science Award (as the second contributor). In 2026, he was selected as a Leading Investigator through an exclusive selection commemorating the 15th anniversary of Chemical Science, the flagship journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC).
       In the lecture, Professor Yuan systematically presented the research advances and representative achievements of his group in the field of ion-imprinted porous framework materials. He first discussed in depth the significance of achieving efficient separation of critical metals in light of national strategic needs and the current development status of critical metal resources. Professor Yuan then analyzed the principal challenges facing conventional ion-imprinting technologies, including insufficient selectivity, nonuniform binding-site interactions, low mass-transfer efficiency, and poor accessibility of imprinted  sites. In addition, conventional imprinting technologies have certain limitations in practical applications. For example, it is difficult to achieve effective recognition and selective imprinting of metal ions with identical coordination structures and similar ionic sizes, and it is likewise difficult to precisely imprint metal-ion complexes with complicated structures and uneven charge distributions.
        To address these problems, Professor Yuan proposed the important research concept of developing functional ion-imprinted porous materials and further introduced their potential applications in a variety of fields, including precious-metal extraction, gas storage, pollutant removal, molecular catalysis, and fluorescence detection. Finally, Professor Yuan highlighted the group’s research achievements in applying ion-imprinted porous framework materials to uranium extraction from seawater and explained in detail the relationship between material structure and uranium-extraction performance. The studies showed that the multiple kinetic bonds constructed in these ion-imprinted porous framework materials can synergistically enhance the recognition, binding, and transport of uranyl ions, thereby facilitating highly selective, rapid, and high-capacity extraction of uranium resources from seawater. This work provides a new material-design strategy for the efficient development and utilization of uranium resources in seawater.
Professor Yuan’s lecture was rigorous in logic and highly forward-looking academically. During the question-and-answer session, Professor Yuan engaged in in-depth discussions with the faculty members and students present on topics including uranium extraction from seawater and the oxidation of other small organic molecules by uranyl ions. The lecture concluded successfully amid warm applause from all those present.