Day 1 :
Keynote Forum
Liqiu “Rick†Wang
The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Keynote: Small is Big: Bio-inspired and microfluidics-enabled structures for manipulating liquids
Time : 09:30-10:10
Biography:
Liqiu “Rick” Wang received his PhD from University of Alberta (Canada) and is currently a full professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Hong Kong. He is also the Qianren Scholar (Zhejiang) and serves as the Director and the Chief Scientist for the Laboratory for Nanofluids and Thermal Engineering, Zhejiang Institute of Research and Innovation (HKU-ZIRI), the University of Hong Kong. He has over 30 years of university experience in thermal & power engineering, energy & environment, transport phenomena, materials, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and applied mathematics in Canada, China/Hong Kong, Singapore and the USA, and 2 years of industrial experience in thermal engineering and technology management. He has secured over 70 projects funded by diverse funding agencies and industries including the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, the National Science Foundation of China and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, totaling > US$20m (excluding US$ 2.2 billion for AMS project). He has published 10 books/monographs and over 370 book chapters and technical articles, many of which have been widely used by researchers all over the world, and is ranked amongst the top 1% of most-cited scientists (ESI). He has also filed 22 patent applications and led an international team in developing a state-of-the-art thermal control system for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) on the International Space Station. The AMS project is headed by Professor Samuel C C Ting (Nobel laureate in Physics, MIT, USA) and is to search for antimatter, dark matter and spectra of cosmic rays. He has presented over 50 invited plenary/keynote lectures at international conferences, and serves/served as the editor-in-chief for the Advances in Transport Phenomena, the editor for the Scientific Reports, the associate editor for the Current Nanoscience, the guest editor for the Journal of Heat Transfer, the Nanoscale Research Letters and the Advances in Mechanical Engineering, and serves on the editorial boards of 20 international journals. Liqiu “Rick” Wang received his PhD from University of Alberta (Canada) and is currently a full professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Hong Kong. He is also the Qianren Scholar (Zhejiang) and serves as the Director and the Chief Scientist for the Laboratory for Nanofluids and Thermal Engineering, Zhejiang Institute of Research and Innovation (HKU-ZIRI), the University of Hong Kong. He has over 30 years of university experience in thermal & power engineering, energy & environment, transport phenomena, materials, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and applied mathematics in Canada, China/Hong Kong, Singapore and the USA, and 2 years of industrial experience in thermal engineering and technology management. He has secured over 70 projects funded by diverse funding agencies and industries including the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, the National Science Foundation of China and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, totaling > US$20m (excluding US$ 2.2 billion for AMS project). He has published 10 books/monographs and over 370 book chapters and technical articles, many of which have been widely used by researchers all over the world, and is ranked amongst the top 1% of most-cited scientists (ESI). He has also filed 22 patent applications and led an international team in developing a state-of-the-art thermal control system for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) on the International Space Station. The AMS project is headed by Professor Samuel C C Ting (Nobel laureate in Physics, MIT, USA) and is to search for antimatter, dark matter and spectra of cosmic rays. He has presented over 50 invited plenary/keynote lectures at international conferences, and serves/served as the editor-in-chief for the Advances in Transport Phenomena, the editor for the Scientific Reports, the associate editor for the Current Nanoscience, the guest editor for the Journal of Heat Transfer, the Nanoscale Research Letters and the Advances in Mechanical Engineering, and serves on the editorial boards of 20 international journals. Liqiu “Rick” Wang received his PhD from University of Alberta (Canada) and is currently a full professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Hong Kong. He is also the Qianren Scholar (Zhejiang) and serves as the Director and the Chief Scientist for the Laboratory for Nanofluids and Thermal Engineering, Zhejiang Institute of Research and Innovation (HKU-ZIRI), the University of Hong Kong. He has over 30 years of university experience in thermal & power engineering, energy & environment, transport phenomena, materials, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and applied mathematics in Canada, China/Hong Kong, Singapore and the USA, and 2 years of industrial experience in thermal engineering and technology management. He has secured over 70 projects funded by diverse funding agencies and industries including the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, the National Science Foundation of China and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, totaling > US$20m (excluding US$ 2.2 billion for AMS project). He has published 10 books/monographs and over 370 book chapters and technical articles, many of which have been widely used by researchers all over the world, and is ranked amongst the top 1% of most-cited scientists (ESI). He has also filed 22 patent applications and led an international team in developing a state-of-the-art thermal control system for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) on the International Space Station. The AMS project is headed by Professor Samuel C C Ting (Nobel laureate in Physics, MIT, USA) and is to search for antimatter, dark matter and spectra of cosmic rays. He has presented over 50 invited plenary/keynote lectures at international conferences, and serves/served as the editor-in-chief for the Advances in Transport Phenomena, the editor for the Scientific Reports, the associate editor for the Current Nanoscience, the guest editor for the Journal of Heat Transfer, the Nanoscale Research Letters and the Advances in Mechanical Engineering, and serves on the editorial boards of 20 international journals.
Abstract:
Nature has always been our inspiration source of innovations. Chinese Kung Fu developed effective moves from hunting skills of powerful beasts like snakes, eagles, and tigers; airplanes mimic the skillful flight of birds; legged robots imitate legged animals such as dogs and spiders. Nowadays, state-of-the-art technology enables us to unveil mysteries of the microscopic world and thus invent at microscale with precision. We have been using the precision of microfluidics in manipulating liquids at nano-, pico-, femto- and even atto-liters and engineering nano-/micro- structures to mimic evolutionarily-optimized nano/microstructures in insects that interact with liquids, and thus developed a series of techniques for manipulating liquids precisely: water collecting, liquids repelling, and droplets manoeuvring. The breakthroughs have yielded three articles published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications in 2017. Unique structural and topological features of spider-silks and their web enable them being a super water collector witnessed by a large number of water droplets handing on them in the early morning. With the microfluidic technology, we have precisely fabricated robust microfibers with spindle cavity-knots and different topological fiber-networks in mimicking these features. These microfibers are endowed with unique surface roughness, mechanical strength, and long-term durability, thus enabling a super performance in collecting water. The maximum water volume collected on a single knot is almost 495 times the knot volume; the water collection is even more efficient and scalable with their networks. These light-weighted yet tough, low-cost microfibers offer promising opportunities for large-scale water collection in water-deficient areas. On a sunny summer day, beaches are full of joys: kids build sand castles; adults swim or surf waves. However, people have to suffer from getting clothes wet. Inspired by springtail cuticle, we have fabricated liquid-repellent surfaces that can eliminate this distressing situation. The fabrication technique is based on microfluidic-droplets templates, similar to the method for making shaped cookies using baking molds. The functional surfaces repel both water and oils attributed only to springtail-cuticle-mimicked nano/microstructures. The work offers deep insights of liquid-repelling structures and benefits our daily life significantly with applications of these super-liquids-repelling surfaces in various fields including clothes, cookers, and building walls where repelling liquid is relevant. Some semiaquatic insects can readily walk on water and climb up menisci slope due to the dense hair mat and retractable claws of complementary wettability on their tarsi. Inspired by this, we created a mechano-regulated surface whose adhesive force to liquid droplets can be simply switched through mechanical regulation. The mechano-regulated surface functions as a “magic hand” that can capture and release multiple tiny droplets precisely in a loss-free manner, and works for both water and oil droplets down to nano-litre scale. These surfaces are relevant and crucial in various high-precision fields such as medical diagnosis and drug discovery where the precise transferring of tiny liquid is a must. Learning from nature paves the way for creating nano/microstructures with unique features to interact with liquids on-demand. Small yet powerful, these structures can manipulate liquids of volume much larger than their dimensions effectively and precisely. With these techniques, water can be gathered directly from the air in deserts, clothes are never been wetted on rainy days, and liquids can be conveniently handled like solids.
Keynote Forum
Manfred George Krukemeyer
Paracelsus-Hospitals, Germany
Keynote: Nanotechnology in liver cancer
Time : 10:10-10:50
Biography:
Abstract:
Therapies of liver tumors display diverse treatment alternatives. The administration of cytostatics coupled with and without iron oxides (Fe3O4) has been presented in an experimental series with 36 animals with prior implantation of an R1H rhabdomyosarcoma in the liver, since iron undergoes selective phagocytosis in the liver. In Group I, mitoxantrone is injected into the lateral tail vein of the animals (n = 12) in a dosage of 1 mg/kg of body weight. Group III (n = 12 animals) received mitoxantrone coupled with iron oxide (Fe3O4), and Group II (n = 12 animals) received NaCl, in the same dosage for all groups. In the Sonography and in the measurement of the volume, a significantly smaller tumor growth is found in Group II compared with Group I and III. The volume was measured manually post mortally in mm3 (length × breadth × height). The tumor volume showed the lowest growth in Group II, which was treated with mitoxantrone-coupled iron oxides. Three animals from Group II died. The autopsy revealed no indication of the cause of death. There were neither thromboses nor allergic reactions in any of the animals. It can be clearly seen that Group I has a smaller mean volume and less scatter than Group II. The mean of Group I is also below that of Group II.
Keynote Forum
Sushanta K Mitra
Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology, Canada
Keynote: Achieving dual phobic surfaces using nanostructured composite coatings
Biography:
Sushanta K Mitra is the Associate Vice-President Research and Kaneff Professor in Micro & Nanotechnology for Social Innovation at the York University. His research interests are in the fundamental understanding of fluid transport in micro and nano-scale confinements with applications in energy, environmental monitoring, and bio-systems. For his contributions in engineering and sciences, he has been elected as the Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME), the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC), the Canadian Academy for Engineering (CAE), the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is also a Fellow of the National Institute for Nanotechnology (NINT) and the recipient of 2015 Engineering Excellence Medal from the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers.
Abstract:
There is a significant surge in developing surfaces that can repel water and air – more particularly repelling oil in under-water systems. We have developed a composite nano-coating consisting of camphor soot particles embedded in PDMS matrix. Through proper curing process, we have demonstrated that such composite surface has self-cleaning properties with a water contact angle of 1710. It showed excellent retention of superhydrophobicity against the impact of sand particles from a height of 10–70 cm and maintained the wetting characteristics against strong acid treatment. We further performed detailed investigation of the mechanical responses of the camphor soot particle-incorporated PDMS composites by using atomic force microscopy (AFM). Using an AFM tip with a radius of approximately 10 nm, we have quantified different mechanical properties such as stiffness, the plastic work, and the effective adhesive work. Through these detailed characterization, we have also demonstrated the self-healing properties of the nanocomposite. Further modifications and chemical treatment of the composite coating provided excellent pathways towards under-water oleophobic characteristics. We have performed detailed wetting measurements in terms of Cassie-Baxter and Wenzel states of the under-water oil drops to demonstrate such under-liquid wettability. This low cost, environment friendly composite coating has large number of applications ranging from marine systems to anti-rust coatings.
Keynote Forum
Sang Soo Han
Korea Institute of Science and Technology , South Korea
Keynote: Reactive force field simulation for design of energy-related materials
Biography:
Sang Soo Han obtained his PhD degree from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Korea in 2005. From 2005-2009, he was a Post-Doctoral Researcher with Prof. William A Goddard III at California Institute of Technology, USA. Then, from 2009-2013, he worked as a Senior Research Scientist in Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, Korea. Since June 2013, he has been a Senior/Principal Research Scientist at Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Korea. His research focuses on design of novel energy- and environmental-materials such as battery, catalysis, and gas storage/separation.
Abstract:
For the practical use of silicon as anodes for Li-ion batteries, understanding their lithiation and delithiation mechanisms at the atomic level is of critical importance. Also, understanding the nature and formation of the solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) formed in Li-ion batteries is very significant for improving their functionality. To accurately predict the lithiation/delithiation behaviors of Si anodes and SEI formations between the anode and electrolytes, a computer simulation method to predict chemical reactions in large-scale systems is necessary. In this aspect, a molecular dynamics simulation with first-principles based reactive force fields (ReaxFFs) should be the best choice. In this talk, I will present recent ReaxFF works regarding lithiation/delithiation of pristine, carbon-coated, and oxidized Si nanowires, along with the SEI formation on Si electrodes. And then, I will introduce a multi-scale simulation platform called iBat (battery.vfab.org) for Li-ion battery that has been developed in our research center.