Overview
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.
Collaborators
Prof. Neil B. McKeown, University of Edinburgh, Functional polymer; membranes; gas separation, 2015
Prof. Easan Sivaniah, Kyoto University, Membranes for separation applications, 2014
Prof. Andrew I. Cooper, University of Liverpool, Developing new porous materials and applications., 2014