Ren Jingyang, senior vice-president of Sugon, introduces the company’s signature cooling technology to journalists during the “Vibrant China Research Tour” in Tianjin. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

Inside a laboratory at the State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology at Nankai University (NKU), Professor Zhang Zhenjie held up a small vial of pale-yellow powder as he explained its possible applications to visiting journalists during a recent research tour.

Though visually unremarkable, the powder belongs to a class of porous crystalline materials known as covalent organic frameworks, or COFs, which can be used in gas separation, pharmaceutical purification and energy-related applications.

The small vial offered an early glimpse of the tour's broader theme: how Tianjin is working to move scientific ideas from laboratory benches into real-world production.

"When we first started, production was only at the milligram level," Zhang said. "At that scale, practical application was impossible."

The scene was part of the four-day "Vibrant China Research Tour" in Tianjin from June 15 to 18, which brought together more than 100 journalists from across China to explore the city's innovation ecosystem.

In recent years, COFs have drawn global attention for their tunable structures and potential in high-end industrial uses. Yet commercialization has long been limited by low synthesis efficiency and difficulties in scaling up production.

Zhang's team has helped achieve ton-scale production of COF materials for the first time. Holding multiple patents on COF synthesis, they have been invited to leading international conferences this year to share their progress in the field.

The breakthrough, however, was the result of years of sustained research rather than a single leap.

After completing his studies at NKU and conducting postdoctoral research in the United States, Zhang returned to Tianjin in 2016. At the time, he was part of a growing wave of overseas-trained researchers contributing to China's push for innovation-driven development.

Back at NKU, he focused on improving structural stability, optimizing synthesis pathways and reducing production costs, gradually moving COFs from laboratory samples toward scalable production.

"In the early stage, everything was done at the gram or even milligram scale," he said. "The real challenge was whether the material could be reproduced consistently, not just once."