11/15-16/2025 MS student Yu-Chen Lu (盧郁禎) gave a talk on the PFAS treatment at the 2025 Chinese Institute of Environmental Engineering annual conference (環工年會) in National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology. Her talk won an outstanding presentation award. Congratulations! Nice teamwork by Yi-Chin, Yu-Chen, Chia-Hsuen, and Kai-Chieh.
11/2-9/2025 Prof. Marisol Sepulveda from Purdue University visited us in Taiwan, shared her research on PFAS at NCKU and National Chung-Hsin University, and visited National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology to see their grouper fish aquaculture farm.
NEWS
9/30/2025 PhD student Po-Yu Yen 顏伯宇 departed for Purdue University in the US for an exchange experience and internship. Po-Yu will study the biological interactions with PFAS and nanoplastics in Prof. Sepulveda's lab.
9/18/2025 Edward Suhendra 楊恆華 (PhD student co-advised with Prof. Chih-Hua Chang) defended his dissertation on the fate and transport modeling of nanomaterials. Congrats, Dr. Suhendra.
9/17/2025 Our work on the highly energy-efficient photocatalytic destruction of perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) including PFOA, PFOS, and GenX over acid-activated hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) involving chlorine radical mediation was published in Chemical Engineering Journal. The first report on using acid activation to tailor the photocatalytic reactivity of hBN. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1385894725094598
5/24-27/2024 Hou research group attended the 2024 Global Chinese Environmental Protection Conference (2024全球華人環境保護研討會) in Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.
Archived news
5/20/2016 Our work on Photochemical Transformation of Graphene Oxide in Sunlight (ES&T, 2015, pp3435-3443) is selected by Web of Science as Highly Cited Paper. This work is also highlighted by ChemistryViews (Wiley-VCH & ChemPubSoc Europe). http://www.chemistryviews.org/details/news/7540421/Potential_Environmental_Risks_of_Graphene_Oxide.html
5/11/2016 PI Hou received 2015 U.S. EPA Scientific and Technological Achievement Award (STAA) for Innovative Research on Relationships between Properties and Environmental Transformations of Nanomaterials.
4/21/2016 Shih-Hung's (世鋐) paper on comparing the environmental photoreactivity of C60 and C70 has been accepted for publication in Journal of Hazardous Materials. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304389416303910 Congratulations, Shih-Hung!
2/29/2016 Chen-Jing (晨暻) and Yi-Sheng's (怡升) paper on the effect of phototransformation on the aggregation of functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes has been accepted for publication in ES&T. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.5b04727 Congratulations to them!
4/27-28/2015 Prof. Paul Westerhoff of Arizona State University visited Tainan and our lab. He gave a plenary speech on Sustainable Nanotechnology in the 12th Environmental Protection and Nanotechnology Conference in Tainan.
4/10/2015 Paper on Sunlight Affects Aggregation and Deposition of Graphene Oxide in the Aquatic Environment has been accepted for publication in Water Research. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0043135415002213
2/11/2015 Paper on phototransformation of graphene oxide in sunlight is accepted in ES&T. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es5047155
5/12-13/2014 Professors Chad Jafvert of Purdue Univ. and Timothy Strathmann of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign visited National Cheng Kung University and gave seminars.
3/14/2014 Paper on the photoreactivity of unfunctionalized single wall carbon nanotube is accepted for publication in ES&T. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es500013j
2/27/2014 Group website is open.
