Seminar Topic: Polymer Nanocomposites for Oil-water Separation: From Absorption, Gelation to the System Integration

Date & Time: 16:00 pm. Sep 28th, 2020

Venue: Room 102, TD Building

Speaker: Peng-Cheng Ma, PhD/Professor/FRSC

Inviter: Prof. Qingbin ZHENG

Abstract

Water pollution arising from oil spillage and chemical leakage has led to severe environmental and ecological problems. Materials that can effectively deal these issues are in urgently needed. This paper will present our recent progress on developing polymer-based nanocomposites with multi-functionalities for efficient recovery of oil and organic liquids in/on water. Polymer nanocomposites with different macroscale states, including membrane, sponge, powder, are prepared and their properties are optimized to endow the materials with controlled hydrophobicity, high oil absorption capacity as well as excellent recyclability and stability under the cyclic operations. Aggregation-induced separation is proposed to reveal the mechanism behind the excellent performance of material. The advantages of polymer nanocomposites for such application are manifested by separating oil-water mixtures from petroleum and petrochemical industries using scale-up reactors, in which the developed nanocomposites are integrated as a key component.

About the Speaker

Professor Ma graduated with BSc in Chemistry and MSc in Polymer Chemistry and Physics, both from Lanzhou University, China. He obtained a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. From 2010 to 2012, he was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and working in Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden in Germany. Professor Ma joined the Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Science in 2012. Currently, he holds a professorship under the National 1000-Talent Program. The research of Professor Ma is concentrated on polymer composites/nanocomposites, fiber science and technology. He authored a monograph, 2 book chapters and published 65 papers in the broad field of composite science and technology with a total citation of 6200. He is a Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC, UK), and was awarded Excellent Young Scientist by the Chinese Society for Composite Materials in 2019.

Besides fundamental research, Professor Ma is enthusiastic in transferring knowledge to technology for various applications. He is a holder of 14 Chinese patents, and 8 of them have been transferred/licensed to industry. He is a co-founder of CAS-Realnm, a hi-tech company working on separation science and technology. Professor is one of the pioneers in developing polymer nanocomposites for oil-water separation, and the material has been commercialized and can be used for water purification and recovery of oil spills in marine system. This project was awarded the 3rd Class in the Sixth China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition in 2017.