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Wang Zeshan - 'master of gunpowder' - wins China's top science award

WION Web Team
Beijing, ChinaUpdated: Jan 09, 2018, 04:38 AM IST
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Wang Zeshan has done major work in propellants and explosives technology and credited with improving the firing range of Chinese artillery. Photograph:(AFP)

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China has applied Zeshan's research in several weapons especially in the long-range Guardian launch rocket system.

President Xi presented Wang Zeshan, 82, with the State Preeminent Science and Technology Award at a ceremony in Beijing. 

Born in China's Jilin Province in 1935 which was under Japanese occupation, Zeshan has been responsible for propping up the People's Liberation Army (PLA) with weapons to tackle Taiwan and India's military on the China border, and vastly enhancing its gunpowder charges.

He has done major work in propellants and explosives technology and credited with improving the firing range of Chinese artillery. The dynamite specialist was the first to develop technology for reusing obsolete explosives, China's Xinhua news agency noted.

China's top science award winner is a professor with Nanjing University of Science & Technology and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. 

Zeshan continues to challenge himself despite spending over 60 years in developing new technologies, his new goal involves manufacturing of smokeless powder which he says "hasn't been solved since it emerged more than 100 years ago."

China has applied Zeshan's research in several weapons especially in the long-range Guardian launch rocket system.