The teams of Professor Yongye Liang from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at SUSTech and Professor Hailiang Wang from the Department of Chemistry at Yale University have worked together in significantly improving electrocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide. Their paper was published in Nature under the title of “Domino electroreduction of CO2 to methanol on a molecular catalyst.”

Last month, Professor Xu Baomin from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) at Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) led his research group to publish a groundbreaking paper on material genetic engineering. The results were published in top academic journal Advanced Functional Materials (IF=15.62), in a paper titled “Accelerating the Screening of Perovskite Compositions for Photovoltaic Applications through High‐Throughput Inkjet Printing.”

MSE Professor Guo Xugang has led his research team to publish several important papers in high-level journals such as Energy & Environmental Science (IF = 33.23), Advanced Materials (IF = 25.81), Advanced Energy Materials (IF = 24.88), Advanced Science (IF = 15.80) and Advanced Functional Materials (IF = 15.62).

Recently, Prof. Lu Zhouguang from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) at Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) led his research team to propose a new strategy to improve the rate capability of TiO2 anode material for SIBs by defect-induced selective surface doping. The results were published in ACS Nano, a leading nanomaterials journal, with the paper titled, “Defect-Assisted Selective Surface Phosphorus Doping to Enhance Rate Capability of Titanium Dioxide for Sodium Ion Batteries.”

Recently, Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) received confirmation that it will receive funding for its first national-level major scientific research instrument development project from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under the Special Fund for Research on National Major Research Instruments in 2019. The SUSTech project is titled “Development of Microfluidic Digital Droplet Central Processor Chip and Platform System,” and will be led by Professor Xing Cheng from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Ammonia is an ideal carbon-free energy storage material owing to its high energy density (4.32 kWh/L), high weight fraction of hydrogen (17.65%), ease of liquefaction under mild conditions, and inexpensive transportation. Industrially, ammonia synthesis is realized by the energy intensive Haber-Bosch process, where nitrogen and hydrogen are reacted at high temperatures (~450 °C) and pressures (10,000 kPa) over an iron-based catalyst.

Wrinkles are widely observed, from the landforms of the earth crust, to human skin, and to flexible electronics. A stiff-soft bilayer wrinkles at a tiny compressive strain, which is almost inevitable in real world applications. Flexible transparent electrodes, a key element in flexible electronics, often consist of stiff-soft bilayers, which tend to wrinkle under mechanical loads. Surfaces wrinkles dramatically increase roughness and reduce optical transmittance, and may also deteriorate interfacial strength. Wrinkles have become a plague to flexible transparent electrodes and related devices.

Radicals are inevitable intermediates during the charging and discharging of organic redox electrodes. The increase of the reactivity of the radical intermediates is desirable to maximize the capacity and enhance the rate capability but is detrimental to cycling stability. Therefore it is a great challenge to controllably balance the redox reactivity and stability of radical intermediates to optimize the electrochemical properties with a good combination of high specific capacity, excellent rate capability and long-term cycle life.

With the development of miniaturized devices, there grows an urgent demand for microactuators that can be integrated into microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and miniature robotics. The microactuators that convert other kinds of energy to mechanical energy are responsible for the moving and controlling operations in these microsystems. The microactuators have attracted increasing attention and are expected to obtain convincing advances in areas including controllable displacement, large force, high speed, high work power, multiple-stimuli response, good compatibility, and high durability in harsh conditions. The importance of mechanical manipulation or positioning with extreme precision has also been gradually recognized in sophisticated MEMS or ultraprecision microrobotics.

The transfer of graphene from one substrate to another requires a transfer agent that usually needs to be removed by washing with an organic solvent. These solvents are harmful to the structural integrity and intrinsic property of a graphene film. There has been considerable research into finding an alternative approach to this.