On Oct. 14, invited by Professor Haifeng Yu of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), College of Engineering, Xiao Hu of Nanyang Technological University visited MSE and gave a lecture entitled “Polymer-Assisted Synthesis of Multifunctional Hybrids: Hidden Potential”. Dozens of teachers and students from MSE, University of Science and Technology Beijing, and Institute of Process Engineering of Chinese Academy of Sciences attended the lecture.

In the talk, Prof. Hu presented his team’s recent efforts on the development of the synthesis and properties of multi-functional polymers and hybrid nanomaterials. He invented a simple method of polymerothermal way to fabricate transparent polymer nanocomposite films with regularly-distributed nanostructures. The obtained materials showed excellent electroluminescence properties with a low-voltage. Then he introduced an approach to prepare block copolymer-like nanostructure by combination of mental ions with polyelectrolytes. To obtain clean water with disinfection, he developed a novel materials based on silver nanoparticle composite with cryogel. The attendees showed great interest in the talk, and raised many related questions.

Following the talk, Prof. Hu met with many faculty members of MSE and exchanged thoughts on fields of common interests. Both parties expressed willingness of future cooperation.

In addition, Hu shared with MSE graduate students about his research experience of nearly 30 years and offered many suggestions about English writing and paper publishing.

About Professor Xiao Hu

Xiao HU is a professor at the School of Materials Science & Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. He obtained his BEng degree in 1985 from the Department of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University in Beijing, and later received his MSc in 1988 and PhD in 1990 from the University of Manchester in the UK. After a short stint of postdoctoral research at the Manchester Materials Science Centre, he joined NTU as a faculty member in April 1992. He served as the inaugural Head of Division of Materials Technology in the School of Materials Science and Engineering, and as its Director of Graduate Programs. Hu worked as a visiting professor at Cornell University between January and August 2010 and holds a concurrent adjunct position at the Institute of Materials Engineering and Research (IMRE), A-STAR, Singapore. He is a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS), a member of the Electrochemical Society (ECS), and a fellow of Plastics & Rubber Institute of Singapore (PRIS). He also represents Singapore at the Federation of Asian Polymer Societies (FAPS). Hu has contributed to more than 230 peer reviewed journal papers and more than 70 conference papers. He has supervised/co-supervised more than 30 masters and PhD students.