Thus, dust enrichment induces an environment rich in molecular clouds that eventually host star formation [@2002MNRAS.337..921H; @2004ApJ...604..222C; @2011ApJ...735...44Y]. In addition, dust also acts as a coolant in the late stages of star formation, inducing the fragmentation of gas clouds [@2005ApJ...626..627O] [. This]{} determines the typical mass of stars [@2006MNRAS.369.1437S] and the shape stellar initial mass function (IMF) [e.g. @2012MNRAS.419.1642C]. All the above processes occur on grain surfaces. The total grain surface area is governed not only by the grain abundance but also by the distribution function of grain size (grain size distribution); therefore, the evolution of these two aspects of dust grains is fundamentally important for the thorough understanding of galaxy evolution.

Dust is also important in radiative processes. Dust grains absorb ultraviolet (UV)–optical stellar light and reemit infrared (IR) photons. Thus, the spectral energy distribution (SED) is dramatically changed by dust grains . This means that a part of star formation activities in galaxies are obscured by dust. This obscured fraction is only recovered by the observations of IR dust emission; thus, tracing the dust emission is crucial in estimating the total star formation rate (SFR) . Because the absorption efficiency of UV photons depends strongly on the grain 