Fan Chen — Researcher Analysis Report
Analysis Mode: fast | Analysis Time: 2026-03-16T00:41:44
Rating: Active Researcher (41.4/100)
Basic Metrics
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Institution | Unknown |
| h-index | 12 |
| Total Citations | 542 |
| Citations in Last 5 Years | 287 |
| Total Papers | 33 |
| Papers in Top Conferences | 0 |
| Publication Period | 1992 – 2022 |
| Semantic Scholar | 49040579 |
Research Trajectory
The “Fan Chen” in this dataset is highly likely to be a combined record of multiple researchers with the same name, not a complete trajectory of a single scholar. From the content of the papers, at least two distinct types of researchers can be clearly identified: (1) a researcher who has long engaged in analytical chemistry/food chemistry, spanning 1992–2022, evolving from early forensic gas chromatography to ion liquid extraction and natural deep eutectic solvents (NADES); (2) a large number of computer science papers after 2019 (reinforcement learning, ReRAM accelerators, quantum computing, optimization theory, diffusion models, etc.), whose themes have nothing to do with the former, clearly coming from different groups of researchers with the same name.
Regarding the main area of traceable analytical chemistry, its academic trajectory is clear: starting with forensic toxic gas chromatography in 1992–2008, shifting to HPLC-DAD food/drug fingerprinting in the 2010s, and achieving a first high-impact breakthrough in 2015–2016 by introducing ion liquids into liquid-phase microextraction and countercurrent chromatography, published in Food Chemistry and J. Chromatography A, with citations of 85 and 61 respectively. From 2019–2021, it ventured into the green extraction field of natural deep eutectic solvents (NADES), continuously publishing multiple high-citation papers, establishing its academic status in the niche of green analytical chemistry.
The ratio of h-index 12, total citations of 542, and citations of 287 in the last 5 years reflects a mid-level researcher whose influence continues to grow in a specific niche (ion liquids/DES green pretreatment), rather than a cross-disciplinary expert.
Breakthrough Works
1. Determination of chlorophenols in honey samples using in-situ ionic liquid-dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction as a pretreatment method followed by high-performance liquid chromatography (2015)
Description: Proposed an in-situ ionic liquid dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (IL-DLLME) method, where hydrophilic ionic liquid [C4MIM][BF4] reacts with an anion to generate a hydrophobic extractant [C4MIM][NTf2] in situ, enabling the enrichment and HPLC detection of six chlorophenols in honey. This paper received 85 citations.
Why it couldn’t be done before: Traditional DLLME relies on toxic organic solvents (chlorobenzene, carbon tetrachloride, etc.) as extraction agents, and there are many interfering substances in food matrices. The strategy of generating ionic liquids in situ had not been systematically applied to the analysis of trace contaminants in honey before; moreover, the cost of commercial ionic liquids dropped significantly in the late 2010s, making the method feasible.
Impact: Opened a practical path for ionic liquid microextraction in food safety. Numerous subsequent papers extended this approach to complex matrices such as wine and vegetable oils, becoming landmark paradigm papers in this niche.
2. Determination of Alternaria mycotoxins in wine and juice using ionic liquid modified countercurrent chromatography as a pretreatment method followed by high-performance liquid chromatography (2016)
Description: Introduced ion liquids into the countercurrent chromatography (CCC) solvent system to achieve preparatory enrichment and purification of Alternaria mycotoxin toxins in wine and juice. Published in J. Chromatography A, with 61 citations.
Why it couldn’t be done before: Countercurrent chromatography traditionally relies on standard solvent systems such as n-hexane/ethyl acetate/methanol/water, which have limited selectivity for polar mycotoxins. The tunable polarity of ionic liquids had not been systematically integrated into CCC phase system design before 2015, and low purity of early ionic liquids led to unstable phase separation.
Impact: Established the feasibility of ionic liquid-modified CCC as a pretreatment tool for natural products and food contaminants, triggering a series of related works in oil separation and anthocyanin purification.
3. Selective microextraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons using a hydrophobic deep eutectic solvent composed with an iron oxide-based nanoferrofluid (2019)
Description: Combined a hydrophobic deep eutectic solvent (DES) with an iron oxide-based nanoferrofluid to achieve magnetic-assisted selective microextraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Published in Microchimica Acta, with 40 citations.
Why it couldn’t be done before: Hydrophobic NADES was not systematically synthesized and characterized until around 2017; combining DES with magnetic nanoparticles to achieve “magnetic DLLME” required both DES design and nanofluid preparation techniques, a cross-discipline area that was rarely explored before 2019.
Impact: Promoted the application of DES in environmental contaminant detection, and a solution combining green solvent and magnetic separation has been widely adopted by subsequent research.
4. A priori design of new natural deep eutectic solvent for lutein recovery from microalgae (2021)
Description: Based on a prior design framework driven by intermolecular hydrogen-bonding interactions, systematically screened NADES for the green extraction of lutein from microalgae. Published in Food Chemistry, with 74 citations.
Why it couldn’t be done before: NADES research previously relied mostly on trial-and-error experiments, lacking rational design methods based on molecular structure prediction of solubility; the combination of molecular dynamics simulations and Hansen solubility parameters was gradually refined in food extraction NADES design until early 2020.
Impact: Shifted NADES research from empirical synthesis to prior design driven by mechanism, providing a methodological model for green extraction chemistry and playing a direct guiding role in microalgae biorefinery directions.
5. A Theoretical Study on Terpene‑Based Natural Deep Eutectic Solvent: Relationship between Viscosity and Hydrogen‑Bonding Interactions (2021)
Description: Clarified the microscopic mechanism of low viscosity in terpene-based NADES through quantum chemical calculations and molecular dynamics simulations, establishing a quantitative relationship between hydrogen-bonding network strength and viscosity. Published in Global Challenges, with 72 citations.
Why it couldn’t be done before: High viscosity was the core obstacle to the industrialization of NADES, but its microscopic causes were unclear; terpene-based low-viscosity systems had not been systematically studied before 2019, and systematic integration of DFT calculations with rheological measurements required interdisciplinary capabilities in computational chemistry and analytical chemistry.
Impact: Theoretically explained the viscosity advantage of terpene-based NADES, laying the thermodynamic/dynamic foundation for subsequent directed design of low-viscosity green solvents and facilitating their transition to practical separation applications.
Research Directions
- Ionic liquid-assisted microextraction and countercurrent chromatography (analysis of trace contaminants in food/environment)
- Design, characterization, and green extraction applications of natural deep eutectic solvents (NADES)
- Development of chromatographic detection methods for forensic and food analysis (GC, HPLC, LC-MS)
- Preparatory separation and purification of bioactive natural products
Methodological Evolution
The methodological evolution of this analytical chemistry researcher shows clear three-stage transitions. The first stage (1992–2008) relied primarily on gas chromatography (GC/FPD, GC-MS) for quantitative detection of forensic toxins and food components, with methods focused on single components and single matrices, and limited technical depth. The second stage (2010–2014) shifted to multi-component simultaneous determination using HPLC-DAD/ELSD, attempting to construct traditional Chinese medicine fingerprinting, and began transitioning to more complex analytical systems, but technological innovation was still limited.
The third stage (2015–present) represents a fundamental paradigm shift: researchers introduced ion liquids (IL) and deep eutectic solvents (DES/NADES) into sample pretreatment, with the core innovation shifting from “detection methods” to “green, efficient sample enrichment/separation strategies.” This transition aligns with the overall trend of “green analytical chemistry” in analytical chemistry, upgrading the work from a technical application-oriented to a method-innovation-oriented approach, leading to a significant increase in citations. Recently (2021), quantum chemical calculations and molecular dynamics simulations were further introduced, elevating empirical solvent design to rational design driven by mechanisms, marking a higher-level evolution toward computational-assisted experiments.
Field Impact
In the niche of analytical chemistry (green sample pretreatment methods), this researcher is one of the important contributors to the coupling technology of ionic liquids and countercurrent chromatography and NADES extraction. Representative papers (Food Chemistry 2015, J. Chromatography A 2016, and 2021 series NADES papers) contributed approximately 470 citations, accounting for 87% of total citations, indicating that influence is highly concentrated during the development phase of green pretreatment methods from 2015–2021. Their work promoted NADES from concept validation to practical applications in food safety and natural product separation, but no disruptive results that change the overall framework of analytical chemistry have been achieved; influence is limited to the niche of green analysis methods. It should be noted that a large number of computer science papers (reinforcement learning, quantum computing, optimization algorithms, etc.) appearing after 2019 in the paper list originate from other researchers with the same name and should not be included in this analytical chemist’s academic contributions.
High-Citation Papers (Top 20)| # | Year | Reference | Title |
|—|——|——|——| | 1 | 2015 | 85 | Determination of chlorophenols in honey samples using in-situ ionic liquid-dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction as a pretreatment method followed by high-performance liquid chromatography. | | 2 | 2021 | 74 | A priori design of new natural deep eutectic solvent for lutein recovery from microalgae. | | 3 | 2021 | 72 | A Theoretical Study on Terpene‐Based Natural Deep Eutectic Solvent: Relationship between Viscosity and Hydrogen‑Bonding Interactions | | 4 | 2016 | 61 | Determination of Alternaria mycotoxins in wine and juice using ionic liquid modified countercurrent chromatography as a pretreatment method followed by high-performance liquid chromatography. | | 5 | 2021 | 43 | Terpenoid-capric acid based natural deep eutectic solvent: Insight into the nature of low viscosity | | 6 | 2019 | 40 | Selective microextraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons using a hydrophobic deep eutectic solvent composed with an iron oxide-based nanoferrofluid | | 7 | 2021 | 40 | New deep eutectic solvent based superparamagnetic nanofluid for determination of perfluoroalkyl substances in edible oils. | | 8 | 2021 | 18 | New natural deep eutectic solvents based on aromatic organic acids | | 9 | 2022 | 16 | Overview of Solvent System Selection Strategies for Countercurrent Chromatography | | 10 | 2021 | 15 | Why do ammonium salt/phenol-based deep eutectic solvents show low viscosity? | | 11 | 2015 | 14 | Determination of chlorophenols in red wine using ionic liquid countercurrent chromatography as a new pretreatment method followed by high-performance liquid chromatography. | | 12 | 2020 | 13 | A biphasic system based on guanidinium ionic liquid: Preparative separation of eicosapentaenoic acid ethyl ester and docosahexaenoic acid ethyl ester by countercurrent chromatography. | | 13 | 2020 | 12 | Preparative separation of high-purity trans- and cis-ferulic acid from wheat bran by pH-zone-refining counter-current chromatography. | | 14 | 2020 | 10 | Ionic liquid-modified countercurrent chromatographic isolation of high-purity delphinidin-3-rutinoside from eggplant peel. | | 15 | 2021 | 7 | Pretreatments of wheat straw for possibility use in maintenance-free compressed green roof substrates | | 16 | 1992 | 6 | Determination of the concentration of tetramethylenedisulfotetramine in human blood by GC/FPD. | | 17 | 1993 | 4 | Determination of tetramethylenedisulfotetramine in blood by gas chromatography. | | 18 | 2019 | 4 | Efficient separation of tocopherol homologues in vegetable oil by ionic liquid based countercurrent chromatography using a non-aqueous biphasic system. | | 19 | 2003 | 3 | ANALYSIS ON CONSTITUENTS OF LIQUEFIED PRODUCTSFROM WHEAT STRAW | | 20 | 2021 | 2 | Allyl glycidyl ether-modified animal glue binder for improved water resistance and bonding strength in sand casting |