The goal of our research group is to synthesize novel functional porous materials based on the rational design of organic building blocks. This strategy could be applied to various blooming porous materials including metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), covalent organic frameworks (COFs), porous molecular crystals (PMCs), and supramolecular cages. These materials are featured of self-assembly, high crystallinity, modularity, and porosity. They are very promising for applications such as gas storage and separation, molecular recognition, catalysis, sensing, and drug delivery. Due to the increasing world population and energy demand, we focus on the development of advanced porous materials for energy storage, gas separations, and pharmaceutical sciences. Students and researchers in our group receive broad training on synthetic chemistry, materials chemistry, material characterization, and development of substantial applications.
|
Nanomedicines
Porous materials have attracted much attention on biomedical applications owing to their high surface area and tunable functionality. Our goal is to design stimulus-sensitive MOFs and COFs that possess high drug loading capacity, good release profile, low inherent cytotoxicity, and effective release of drug guests. Integrating with nanotechnologies, we will develop new nanomedicines for drug delivery, theranostics, and cancer treatment.
|
Energy Storage
In order to make the best use of green energy sources, we need to create clean and sustainable energy storage. Through our development of new synthetic approaches and strategies, we have made significant progress in redox-active coordination polymers, porous organic polymers, and MOFs for lithium-ion, sodium-ion, and zinc-ion batteries. Our ongoing studies will continue to explore fundamental approaches for the synthesis of functional materials constructed by quinone-based linkers in particular, with the ultimate goal to make scientific breakthroughs in sustainable technologies.
|
Gas SeparationsEfficient waste-gas separations and hydrocarbon upgrading can minimize the pollution, cost, and energy consumed, which are extremely important for sustainable development. Adsorption technologies based on solid adsorbents are considered a promising alternative, especially when the regeneration of adsorbents is operated by the pressure reduction processes, i.e., pressure swing adsorption (PSA), which shows potential to lower the environmental, energetic, and economic costs of CO2 separations. Our research is to design functional porous materials that are capable of efficient gas separations by using PSA approach.
|