Fei Lab

Welcome!

We are a materials and chemical engineering research group in the Department of Chemical Engineering at UL Lafayette. Our research focuses on the design, synthesis, and engineering of nanostructured materials and their composite materials  for applications on energy storage and conversion, drug delivery, catalysis , and water purification. We are interested in both fundamental research and real applications. 

News and Events

May 21,  2025,  Dr. Fei presented our work on lithium-sulfur (Li–S) battery separator modification at the 247th ECS Meeting.

April 26-27 2025, We hosted our Trimming CO₂  Annual Project Meeting—a wonderful time to share progress, discuss results, and plan future work. We sincerely thank our team members from West Virginia University, the University of New Mexico, and New Mexico State University, as well as our valued external reviewers and advisory board members from Washington University in St. Louis, Plug Power, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Thank you!

March 28 2025, Mia, the freshman girl in our group, won 3rd place in the College of Engineering Undergraduate Poster Competition. It was her very first poster! We are incredibly proud of her and grateful to have her as a committed lab assistant!

March 14 2025, Dr. Fei received the "Outstanding Achievement in Externally Funded Research" and "Outstanding Achievement in Innovation" awards for the year 2023-2024. We are incredibly grateful for all the support and recognition!

February 27 2025, Dr. Fei delivered an invited talk on our proof-of-concept work on 3D-printed electrodes in the Additive Manufacturing for Power Sources in Electronics symposium at the Electronic Materials and Applications 2025 (EMA 2025) conference. Thanks for invitation.

February 21 2025, We had a small party after our group meeting to send Kenneth off to Los Alamos for his internship. We are incredibly grateful for Kenneth's consistent contributions to our group in the past years.

October 27-31 2024, Dr. Fei, Zhi, and Xing attended the AIChE conference in San Diego, CA.

October 6-11 2024, Members of the Fei lab attended the ECS PRiME conference in Honolulu, HI.

October 6-11 2024, Members of the Fei lab attended the ECS PRiME conference in Honolulu, HI.

May 26-30 2024, Dr. Fei and Cameron attended the ECS Conference in San Francisco, CA.

May 11 2024, Karius was selected as the Outstanding Graduate for Spring 2024.

April 13-14 2024, We hosted the Annual TRIMMing CO2 NSF Review conference.

March 20 & 22 2024, Kenneth won the yearly Engineering and Technology week Graduate Student Research Presentation Competition. He also competed in the Graduate Poster Competition.

March 18 2024, Dr. Wei, Zhi, Xing, and Hallie had a demonstration of batteries, capacitors, and fuel cells as well as a research poster for the Engineering and Technology Expo.

March 17-21 2024, Dr. Fei and Kenneth presented research at the ACS Conference in New Orleans, LA.

March 14 2024, Karius and Griffin won research Awards at the LEAF Award Ceremony with Karius winning the Provost Research Award. Kenneth Accepted Griffin's Award in his place, and Kenneth and Cameron were recognized for providing support and mentorship to Griffin and Karius.

March 12 2024, Dr. Fei won the Rising Star Award at UL's Research Recognition Award Ceremony.

Nov 5-10 2023, Our entire group attended the 2023 AICHE conference and presented our recent work. 

Nov 2023, Cameron has successfully defended his master's thesis and is set to join the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in January 2024. Congratulations! 

                     Sophomore Griffin presented his electrospray work at the Undergraduate Research Conference, WELL DONE!

October 2023, Kenneth and Dr. Fei participated in the 244th ECS meeting held in Sweden. This marked Kenneth's inaugural conference attendance, and he shared his work on block polymer electrospraying. Additionally, Dr. Fei found immense inspiration in the insightful talks delivered by Prof. Shirley Meng and received words of encouragement from her. Prof. Shirley Meng serves as an exceptional role model for women in STEM, making her a true source of inspiration!

August 2023, We are thrilled to announce that our outreach efforts have been featured in the prestigious National Academy of Engineering's Engineer Girl magazine. This recognition is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our team in inspiring and empowering the next generation of female engineers. We remain committed to our mission and excited to continue making a positive impact.

May 2023, we had several exciting news to celebrate:

April was honored as the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s overall Outstanding Graduate. 

Kerry, our high school lab member,  received acceptance offers from multiple universities and chose UC Berkeley for the Fall.

Kenneth, was awarded the prestigious LaSPACE Graduate Student Research Assistance (GSRA)!

April 6, 2023, Zizhou has successfully passed his PhD defense and is now officially a Doctor!  Along the way, he has contributed greatly to our research efforts and has been a valuable asset to our team. Congratulations once again, Zizhou!

April 3, 2023, It is the month of April! We are thrilled to congratulate our undergraduate member, April Bourlet, for receiving multiple awards this month. April was recognized as the Outstanding Undergraduate Student of the department, which is only awarded to one student. She also took first place in the Undergraduate Student Research Poster Competition and received the Leaf Research Award from the University. We are incredibly proud of you, April!  It has been an absolute pleasure working with you for the past three years.

Feb 24, 2023, Our lab and SWE visited Breaux Bridge High School and conduct science demonstrations. It brought us immense joy to witness the students and teachers actively engaging with the demos and eagerly asking questions. We are excitedly anticipating more collaborative experiences in the future, as we continue to embark on our shared journeys together!

Jan  20, 2023, Undergraduate Emily and Karius in our group received research grants from LA BoR to work  on energly storage projects.  Congradualtations! 

Jan  20, 2023, Zizhou received "Dissertation Fellowship" from Graduate School! Congradualtations! 

Dec 19, 2022, Dr. Fei gave a talk on Electrospinning-Based Material Design for Clean Energy Applications at Los Alamos National Laboratory.  Many thanks for the kind invitation.

Dec 8, 2022, Kenneth is working on sugarcane bagasse-derived materials for sodium-ion batteries. He visited Canjun Sugarcane Company to convey the message of biowaste utilization for green technology. 

Nov 13-18, 2022, Zizhou and Dr. Fei attended 2022 AICHE annual meeting at Phoenix. Zizhou presented our work on solid-state electrolytes.  Glad to see old friends and meet many new ones. Enjoyed the inspiring talks and discussions!

Nov 10, 2022, Josh successfully defended his thesis. He will start work full-time for Westlake Chemical in December. Congraduations! Proud of you! 

Aug 29-Sep 1, 2022, Dr. Fei attended NASA STEM Better Together 2022 Convene, Connect, Collaborate and visited NASA Langley Research Center.  Fully Enjoyed the great discussion on research and education. 

Aug 11, 2022, Dr. Fei gave an invited talk in the Electrochemical Research, Technology, & Engineering Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory led by Dr. Will West.  Thanks for the kind invitation and great discussion. 

July 21, 2022 Our collaborative project titled "Collaborative Research: Engineering Atomically Dispersed Metal-Site Air Cathodes via Electrospinning at Multi-Scales for Low-Temperature Fuel Cells" was funded by NSF CBET. It is truly encouraging to see our perspectives on the potential of electrospinning for catalyst design getting recognized. We thank our long-term collaborator, Prof. Gang Wu's Team at  SUNY Buffalo,  and all the people who support our research journey! 

June 18, 2022 Evana Parker, undergraduate researcher, was awarded Grace Hopper Celebration Scholarship!  So proud of you, congratulations!  She is currently doing summer internship with P&G at Alexandria.

June, 2022, Rayden Farmer and Belle Racca from Breaux Bridge High School and Kerry Pan from Lafayette High School joined the lab as summer interns. Welcome!

May 29-June 2, 2022 Dr. Fei attended  241st ECS meeting in Vancouver and presented our work on Solid State Electrolyte. Glad to meet new and old friends and learn from each other.

May 13, 2022 Crystal (Thu Nguyen) was recognized as one of the four finalists for the Outstanding Master’s Graduates award for the 2022 Spring graduation.  So proud of you, enjoyed every second with you in the past two years. 

May 8-12,2022 Dr. Fei, Josh, and Crystal attended 2022 MRS meeting in Hawaii. 

April 6, 2022 Breaux Bridge High School students led by Mr. Ortego and Mr. Miller visited us. It is their first time attending Engineering and Technology event at UL Lafayette.  Great time together.

Mar 25, 2022 Congratulations to Crystal for  passing her thesis defense! 

Feb 22, 2022, Congratulations to Crystal for her first first-authored paper on superhydrophobic surface coating! https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.langmuir.1c03134

Feb 21, 2022 Just came across a few conference blogs I wrote when I was invited to serve as the student blogger back in 2013. Old Memory, New Joy! https://ceramics.org/author/ling-fei

Jan 19, 2022 Congratulations to Miss. April and Blake! Both have been granted the Supervised Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE)  award by Louisiana Board of Regents. We are proud of you, Girls!

Dec 16,  2021 Congratulations to Zizhou. His work on Free-Standing Anode for Lithium/Sodium Ion Battery has been published. 

November 17,  2021 approaching the end of the semester, we had a group stress releasing activity---rock climbing. We are glad to have this little fun moment with each other! Let's rock the finals and research projects. 

November 7, 2021, Dr. Fei and Zizhou attended 2021 AICHE annual meeting.  Dr. Fei served as session chairs for Nanomaterials for Energy Storage and Conversion; Zizhou presented his work on battery electrode materials. 

August 27, 2021, Our IMRI project led by Dr. Zhou on Solid State Batteries for Future NASA missions is awarded $1.5M.  UL Lafayette is the lead-institution; LSU, LA Tech, and LA BoR are participating institutions. Feel honored to be part of the team!  College of Engineering news link;  NASA News Link.

August 26, 2021, Dr. Fei gave an invited talk titled "Electrospinning based material design for application in clean energy technology" at the Thermal/Photo/Electrochemical Catalytic Process for Clean Energy  session in the ACS 2021 Fall Meeting! Thanks for the invitation.

August 6, 2021, Welcome Joshua and Victor to join us as master students this fall! Looking forward to a journey together!

April 8, 2021, Congratulations to Ryan and Oscar for being accepted to multiple REU programs! Oscar will join U of Chicago REU, and Ryan will join Mississippi State U REU  in the summer! 

Mar 3, 2021, Our steel corrosion protection project has been funded by Louisiana Transportation Research Center, $38,653. Thanks for the support!

Feb 1, 2021, Congratulations to Jed! His first-authored paper entitled "A Review on Lithium Phosphorus Oxynitride"--an invited review from The Journal of Physical Chemistry C,   has been published. Well done!  https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpcc.0c10001

Nov 19, 2020, Our collaborative work with  Dr. Gang Wu from SUNY UB was published on Advanced Materials!  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/adma.202003577

OCT 8, 2020, Congratulations to Zizhou! His first-authored paper entitled "Directly Embedded Ni3S2/Co9S8@S-Doped Carbon Nanofiber Networks as Free-standing Anode for Lithium-ion Batteries" has been accepted  by Sustainable Energy & Fuels. Well done!

Sep 21, 2020, Our review paper entitled" A Mini Review on Superhydrophobic and Transparent Surfaces" has been published on The Chemical Record ! Congratulations to all! link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/tcr.202000075

August 13, 2020, Congratulations to Jed! His first journal paper entitled" Investigating the Effects of Lithium Phosphorous Oxynitride Coating on Blended Solid Polymer Electrolytes" has been accepted to ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces ! Great achievement as a master student. link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.0c09113 

May 12, 2020, Dr. Fei was awarded "2020 Early Career Researcher " by the College of Engineering. Thank you all for the kind support!

May 8, 2020, Jed LaCoste passed his master defense, Congratulations! Jed is going to start his next life chapter as a PhD candidate in Colorado School of Mines. Best luck for your future!

Apr 2, 2020, Our proposal titled "Development of High-Performance Anode Materials for Lithium Ion Batteries" was funded by LA Board of Regents . This project aims to utilize crustacean shells  waste  for battery applications. We are grateful for the generous support.

Mar 3, 2020, Our proposal focusing on light weight and high energy density materials for Li-ion battery in support of NASA's Space Mission was funded by LA NASA EPSCoR . We are grateful for the generous support.

Jan 8, 2020, Dr. Fei received the Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award  provided by the Office of Vice President for Research, Innovation and Economic Development and Louisiana Council on Excellence in Undergraduate Research (LaCOEUR). Thank you all for the support!

Dec 5, 2019, Our proposal on 3D metal printing for lithium ion batteries has been recommend for funding. Many thanks to  CIMM for the fund and facility support! 

Nov 10-15, 2019, Zizhou presented our work on metal sulfide in AICHE meeting. Dr. Fei chaired the Nanomaterials for Energy Storage Applications Session and met our collaborators.

Oct 13-17,  2019,  Jed presented our work on solid state electrolyte in ECS! 

May-August,  2019, Jed and Dr.Fei visited the Material Discovery team in NREL led by Dr. Andriy Zakutayev to work on solid state batteries project. Thank you for hosting us! 

April 3,  2019, Jed presented in 2019 IEEE Green Technologies Conference(GreenTech). Well done!

April 1,  2019, Dr. Shaobo Li joined us as a postdoc. Welcome!

March 29, 2019, Freshman Ryan Cook attended 2019 E&T Presentation Competition and was selected as one of five finalists. Congratulations! 

March 27,  2019, Jed presented our research to high school students during 2019 Engineering and Technology Expo.  Jed also attended the Graduate Poster Competition. Thank you for the hard work.

March 1, 2019, Dr. Fei was awarded the Chevron Endowed Professorship in Chemical Engineering . Thank you all for your support.

Feb 8, 2019, Dr. Fei, Adviser of SWE, led students to Geismar, LA to visit BASF and toured the plant, including their Acetylene, Amines, Polyol, & Aniline units as well as Maintenance, Mechanical Integrity & Substation 104 subdivisions ! 

Feb 1, 2019, Undergraduate Drew Matherne  joined our group! Welcome!

Nov 17,  2018, Freshmen  Ryan Cook and  Nicholas Campo presented posters in the 11th Annual Honors Undergraduate Research Conference in UL Lafayette. Well done!

Oct 28-Nov 1, 2018 Dr. Fei chaired the  Nanomaterials for Energy Storage Session in 2018 AICHE Annual Meeting.  Hui Guo also attended the meeting.

Oct 19, 2018 Dr. Fei gave an invited talk in Macromolecular Chemistry Seminar at Louisiana State University. 

September 10, 2018 Dr. Guanjun Yang, Director of Center for Thermal Spray and Hybrid Materials in  Xi'an Jiaotong University, delivered an invited talk on perovskite solar cells in our group.

August 20, 2018 Dr. Fei's first proposal to NSF was awarded.  A research grant of $250,000 was received. 

July 23-26,2018 Dr. Fei attended 2018 CCPS process safety faculty workship in BASF Wyandotte site, Michigan.

April 24, 2018 Sydney E Ardoin joined Fei Lab as a Ph.D student. Welcome!

April 23, 2018 Hui Guo from Central South University, China joined Fei Lab as a visiting scholar. Welcome!

Mar. 27, 2018   Jed LaCoste joined Fei Lab as a master student. Welcome!

Feb. 23, 2018, Dr. Fei served as judge for Energy Session in the Louisiana Region VI Science and Engineering Fair .

Jan. 29, 2018, Dr. Fei gave a presentation in the departmental graduate students seminar.

Jan. 15, 2018, Undergraduate  Gordon Kenneth joined Fei Lab. Welcome!

Jan. 04, 2018, Dr. Fei joined Department of Chemical Engineering, UL Lafayette.