He was a research professor and Vice President of the Institute of Process Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

[2] In 1939, he was admitted to the Department of Chemical Engineering of National Central University, then exiled in Chongqing during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

[2] After the end of World War II, Chen was awarded a Chinese government scholarship to pursue graduate studies in the United States in 1947.

[3] In 1956, the American government reached an agreement with the PRC to permit Chinese students in the US to go home, who had been banned from moving back to China since the Korean War.

Hydrometallurgy, a more energy-efficient and cleaner process than traditional pyrometallurgy, is especially suitable for the extraction of uranium, copper, and other non-ferrous metals.

[2][3] He also worked at the mines in Jinchuan, Gansu and Panzhihua, Sichuan, and made technological breakthroughs to efficiently separate non-ferrous metals such as gold, silver, copper, nickel, and cobalt.

[5] Chen supervised more than 50 graduate students, and published reference books including A Handbook on Hydrometallurgy (湿法冶金手册).

He served five consecutive terms as a member of the 4th to the 8th National Committees of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.