Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Before the report began, Lu Zhou ran many scenarios in his head, but he had not expected this to happen.
While he was leaving the venue, the crowd applauded him again.
Even though most big names liked to catfight at the MRS Conference, they fought on the premise that they understood the report. If one did not understand the report, one did not have a right to speak. This was the same at mathematics conferences.
Although Lu Zhou’s report was on lithium batteries, the computational materials science field was still very new. As such, many veteran researchers did not study computational materials science at all.
Thankfully, the computational chemistry field still had people like D.E Shaw. However, Lu Zhou did not realize that his report and thesis had just set a benchmark for the computational materials science field.
Even though many people were confused about his mathematical model, no one had the confidence to stand up.
The reason was that the result of the experiments was clearly there, and it was a huge result.
Just like how Jack Ma said he did not like money, one could not do anything to attack that claim.
It was because the results were irrefutable.
Liu Bo stopped applauding. He sat at the back of the lecture hall and stared at the whiteboard.
“Interesting…”
Professor Li Rongen interrupted him before he could say anything else.
“Interesting your mom. Did you understand it? Explain it to me.”
Since Liu Bo was exposed by his boss, he could only smile and shut his mouth.
He was different from Qian Zhongming and Professor Li Rongen. He studied applied chemistry, and compared to those that studied condense matter physics, his mathematics was at a level behind.
Since his boss did not understand it, there was no way he could.
Qian Zhongming sat next to him and stopped writing. He stared at the three whiteboards on the stage for a long time.
After a while, he finally sighed and said, “Strong…”
Professor Li Rongen smiled and said, “Understood?”
“Understood half of it, so I guess not.”
Qian Zhongming shook his head. He then closed his notebook and stood up.
Professor Li, “Where are you going?”
Qian Zhongming, “I’ve got a few questions that I don’t understand, so I want to ask him.”
Professor Li shook his head and said, “Wait a few days. He might be too busy for you.”
Qian Zhongming was stunned. He did not know why.
Professor Li did not explain. Instead, he stood up and said, “Let’s go, it’s time to eat. I’ll take you guys to eat some Boston lobsters. As for the University of Jin Ling’s Professor Lu, go and visit him after a few days.”
This was correct. Although Lu Zhou was technically a professor at Princeton, he had an honorary professor title at the University of Jin Ling. Who could say that an honorary professor title was not a professor?
As for the other point, Professor Li was very perceptive.
At the moment, Lu Zhou really did not have time to discuss some computational materials science problem.
The moment Lu Zhou walked out of the lecture venue, he was surrounded by people.
“Professor Lu Zhou, do you have time right now? I want to discuss the mathematical model you just presented.”
“Hello, I am the CEO of Digilen. Are you interested in taking the role of a material development director? We can give you a million dollar salary, and 5.6% options…”
There were people asking him academic questions, people offering him jobs, and even people begging to become his apprentice.
A sweet lady, which was rare in the field of materials science, grabbed Lu Zhou’s hand.
“God Lu! Are you teaching this class at Princeton? Can I apply as your PhD student? I’m graduating this year. Can I get your WeChat?”
Lu Zhou looked at the master’s female student and said, “Of course Princeton has a computational materials class, but I’m a mathematics professor. I mainly teach number theory.”
The girl’s eyes widened and she said, “Are you not planning to teach a computational materials science course? You can undoubtedly become the leader in this field.”
Lu Zhou said, “Although my research direction includes functional analysis, complex analysis, and harmonic analysis, I’m only doing computational materials science as a hobby. Before I perfect my knowledge in this area, I’m not taking any students.”
Lu Zhou knew he was humblebragging, and both the PhD and master’s students in computational materials could not help but roll their eyes.
F*ck sake!
What do you mean it’s your hobby?
Why don’t you go fly as a hobby?
After half an hour, Lu Zhou finally got rid of the crowd.
He dragged his tired body back to his hotel and took a shower. He then changed into some fresh clothes before he went downstairs to the first-floor lobby.
Although the MRS organizer provided meals for all of the presenters, they clearly had a more special arrangement for Lu Zhou.
All of the invited speakers and important guests were arranged at the five-star hotel next to the venue. This meant that the dinner was invitation only.
The reason for this was so the big names could eat in quiet, and it separated the academic community and the businessmen from the general public.
After all, no one wanted to be interrupted when talking about multi-million dollar deals.
So far, the industry was tempted, but past lessons have taught them to be patient.
However, Lu Zhou estimated that their patience was running out.
At the hotel buffet, Lu Zhou placed a lobster onto his plate. He then found a comfortable place to sit down. Suddenly, a major player walked up to him with a smile.
“Hello, Professor Lu, I am the CEO of Umicore from Belgium, Marc Grynberg. Can I sit here?”
Lu Zhou smiled and nodded.
“Sure.”
Grynberg sat across from Lu Zhou and handed him his business card.
“Thank you, here is my business card.”
Lu Zhou took the business card. He looked at it before put it into his pocket.
After all, Umicore was an industry giant. Lu Zhou had heard of this company. This Belgium chemical giant began to produce cathode materials after purchasing the patent for lithium iron phosphate in 2011 for millions of dollars.
Then within a year, they signed a giant cooperate contract with 3M. With the help of 3M’s customers, they surpassed Nichia to become the world’s largest lithium battery cathode producer.
Lu Zhou knew why a positive material company wanted to talk with him.
Right now, the anode material of lithium-ion batteries was mainly composed of artificial graphite and natural graphite, which had nothing to do with lithium materials.
Precisely because of this, the giant company that produced cathode materials was keen on the research and development of lithium batteries.
In 2015, Umicore reached a strategic cooperation agreement with the Argonne National Laboratory for lithium battery research and development. Umicore had always been ambitious toward lithium batteries.
If the industry eliminated graphite anode materials, which had been used for more than 20 years, and switched to the more advanced lithium anode materials, it would allow a company like them, who were experts in lithium material production, to get into the anode material market.
No matter what, they could not fall behind their rival company, Nichia.
As such, Mr. Grynberg did not want to wait a single day. As soon as the report finished, he rushed to visit Lu Zhou.
It would be best for him if he could purchase the patent with a premium.
Of course, getting the patent authorization ASAP would be nice as well.
After all, getting the patent earlier would mean major orders from customers like Panasonic, BYD, LG, Sony, and etc.
