Institute of Process Engineering (China)

The Innovation group of Inorganic functional materials @ IPE was established in January 2004 under the financial support of “Chinese Academy of Sciences Project of one hundred Talents”. The research area of the laboratory covers the preparation and characterization of functional and catalyst materials. The group is interested in inorganic material chemistry, surface and colloidal chemistry, hydrothermal chemistry, sol-gel chemistry and self-assembly processes, with focus on the design and synthesis of micro-/nanostructured functional inorganic materials and their applications in energy conversion and storage, photocatalysis and sensors. These research covered environmental detection materials, conversion and storage technology for cleaner energy, materials for pollution control and reduction, and toxic raw materials-substitute technology. To enhance the mass and energy transfer, recent work about the multi-shell metal oxide is interesting and impressive. The shell number can be controlled by adjusting the ion concentration and calcined condition. Controllable ZnO multi-shell spheres was first reported and used in DSCs, and this method is now extended to Co3O4, TiO2, SnO2, Fe2O3, and so on. These materials are used in DSCs, lithium ion batteries and photocatalysis, and show the terrific properties.

The study on simulation by the first-principles is included in this group. With the calculation, the charge transport in the interface and the dynamic process of the multi-shell formation is researched. The simulation explained and inspired the experiment, and more work is carrying out.

There are 18 staff members, and 12 students in this laboratory, including 1 professor, 1 associate professor, 5 assistant professors, 10 research assistants, 1 postdoctoral researcher, 6 PhD Students and 6 Master students. Our laboratory is undertaking several fundamental and application research projects sponsored by the central government and corporations, including Chinese Academy of Sciences Project of one hundred Talents, Natural Science Foundation of China, Open Foundation of the State Key Laboratory, and enterprise projects. The research themes of these projects are focused on the development, design and application of the energy sources, catalyst and environment materials. In the year of 2009, IPE organized the Foshan Gaoming (CAS) Center for Novel Materials. More equipment was introduced and provided more abundant resources. The Innovation group has published over 60 papers, over 500 SCI citations, 9 patents, 1 patent license.

List of five recent publications related to the project:

• Z. Dong, et al. Adv. Mater. Accurate Control of Multi-Shelled ZnO Hollow Microspheres for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells with High Efficiency, 2012, 24, 1046–1049
• X. Lai, et al. Energy Environ. Sci. Recent Advances in Micro-/Nano-structured Hollow Spheres for Energy Applications: From Simple to Complex, 2012, 5, 5604-5618. Top Ten Most Read Article on November 2011
• J. Du, et al. ACS Nano Hierarchically Ordered Macro-mesoporous TiO2-Graphene Composite Films: Improved Mass-transfer, Reduced Charge Recombination and Their Enhanced Photocatalytic Activities, 2011, 5 (1), 590–596. Most Read Articles as 1 Month: Top 20
• J. Li, et al. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. General Synthesis and Unique Gas-sensing Properties of Multiple-Shell Metal Oxide Hollow Microspheres, 2011, 50, 2738-2741.
• F. Su, et al. Energy Environ. Sci. Nitrogen-containing microporous carbon nanospheres with improved capacitive properties 2011, 4, 717-724.

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