Chinese scientists, engineers list top 10 scientific, tech stories of 2020

3. China's unmanned submersible and manned submersible both make new breakthroughs in deep diving.

Unmanned submersible Haidou-1, developed by the Shenyang Institute of Automation of CAS, returned from sea trials aboard the scientific research vessel Exploration 1 on June 8. During this voyage, Haidou-1 set a new record by submerging 10,907 meters under the Pacific Ocean's surface at the Mariana Trench, the deepest area in the world.

On Nov 28, the deep-sea manned submersible Fendouzhe, meaning "striver" in Chinese, returned with the research vessel Exploration 1. The submersible was jointly developed by the No 702 research institute of the China State Shipbuilding Corporation and CAS's Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering.

During this expedition, Fendouzhe set a national diving record of 10,909 meters in the Mariana Trench, marking the fact China has achieved a leading position in the world in the field of manned deep diving. It also will help scientists understand the composition and evolution of organisms in the abyssal seabed, mineral deposits and seamount volcanic rocks, as well as the role of deep-sea trenches in monitoring the climate.

4. China was the first country in the world to extract flammable ice using a horizontal well-drilling technique.

Natural gas hydrate is commonly known as flammable ice. On March 26, the Ministry of Natural Resources announced that China had extracted a record amount of flammable ice during the second trial exploration in the South China Sea, with about 28,700 cubic meters collected per day and a total of 861,400 cubic meters extracted.

During the trial, researchers also independently developed a set of key technologies and an equipment system to industrialize gas hydrate extraction, created a unique environmental protection and monitoring system, and independently innovated an environmental risk prevention and control system.

The trial has overcome the core technology of drilling horizontal wells in shallow and soft strata in the deep sea, making China the first country in the world to adopt the horizontal well-drilling technique to trial mining gas hydrates in the sea.