On 1 June, Prof. Mingmei WU from Sun Yat-Sen University (中山大学 吳明娒 教授) was invited to give a talk on complex nanostructured titania for energy conversion and storage applications, chaired by Prof. Huaiyu Shao. This is the first exchange activity between the University of Macau and Sun Yat-Sen University upon the signing of a memorandum of understanding on the establishment of a Ministry of Education Joint Key Laboratory, which took place on 31 May 2018.
During this talk, it was discussed that both physical and chemical properties of an inorganic material are crucially dependent on its chemical composition as well as crystal structures, sizes and growth orientations. Titania is taken as an example to show the rational growth of either simple or complex nanostructures by using topotactic conversion and epitaxial growth routes. These nanostructures include one-dimensional nanorod (obelisk-like) arrays, two dimensional nanosheet arrays and three dimensional nanoflower, nanotree and even cross-medal arrays. In addition, complex nanocages assembled by perpendicularly orientated titania nanorods and nanosheets can be realized via in situ topotactic conversions from perovskite nanocages which is constructed by nanocubes grown perpendicularly in 3D orientations. Finally, Prof. Wu showed two examples of hetero-structures with rich matched boundary structures. One consists of anatase TiO2 and TiO2-B (identical chemical component), and the other consists of anatase TiO2 and hematite Fe2O3 (different chemical components). These specific TiO2-based materials with unique nanostructures present tunable and enhanced performances as photo-catalyst and anode materials.
Mingmei Wu is a professor in School of Chemistry, Sun Yat-Sen University, China. He is a guest professor of Yunnan Minzu University, an Editorial Committee Member of Functional Materials, vice president of Haizhu Branch of Guangzhou European-American Union (Guangzhou Retuned-Student & Scholar Association), a Scientific Advisory Board Member of the 5th International Conference on the Physics of Optical Materials and Devices (ICOM 2018), an Advisory Committee Member of the 7th National Conference on the Luminescence Properties of Doped Nanomaterials. He has been often selected as an evaluation expert of the joint fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the Key Special Projects of Guangdong Province and Guangzhou City. He has published more than 160 peer-review articles in international journals such as Journal of the American Chemistry Society, Advanced Materials, Advanced Energy Materials and ACS Nano et al. This publications have been cited more than 5000 times so far. He owns 9 authorized patents. He has been invited as plenary talk and keynote lecture speaker several times in national and international conferences. In 2010, he was awarded as an excellent doctoral thesis advisor of Guangdong province and he won excellent talents program award of Zhongshan University.
