Dr Qilei Song

Research group website http://www.imperial.ac.uk/song-group/

Dr Song is leading a new and dynamic group working on novel nanoporous materials, such as microporous polymers, metal-organic frameworks, porous organic molecules, supramolecular materials, and their broad applications in separations, catalysis, combustion, and energy conversion and storage.

Structure and Properties of Functional Materials

Design and fabrication of functional materials, understanding the structure-property relationships, and applications in energy conversion, molecular separations, heterogeneous catalysis, and clean combustion and power generation.

Membranes for Energy and Environmental Applications

Design and fabrication of microporous membranes for molecular-level separations in energy and environmental processes (gas separation, liquid separation, separation of biofuels, and desalination for clean water).

Advanced Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage

Design and fabrication of novel electrode materials, membranes and separators for batteries and supercapacitors.

Rational design of these novel materials for functional applications requires a fundamental understanding of their physical and chemical properties at the molecular level, such as chemical structure, macromolecular structure and crystalline structure, and linking the structures with their bulk properties over multi-magnitudes of scale. To solve these questions, the group uses an interdisciplinary approach involving chemistry, physics, materials science, chemical engineering science, and cutting-edge nanotechnology. The group are working on synthetic chemistry and collaborating extensively with chemists and materials scientists. Extensive physical and chemical characterization techniques are used to establish the structure-property relationships, building a fundamental background for their scale-up and commercialization to industrially useful products.