Guoliang (Greg) Liu

"Economical energy" has been listed as the number one challenge in the 14 Grand Challenges by the National Academy of Engineering. For several decades, researchers have made tremendous efforts toward finding a solution to this challenge, but no satisfactory answer has been reached. Admittedly, our knowledge of the materials that can potentially solve this challenge is ever growing, but the integration of these materials into practical applications has not yet met our requirements and is still far from our expectations. Organic polymers, composed of earth-abundant elements, are low-cost and easily-processible materials that can be manufactured into a wide range of macroscopic and microscopic structures. Inorganic nanoparticles, on the other hand, have tremendously rich optical, magnetic, catalytic, and plasmonic properties. Separately, neither has been utilized to the full potential for energy applications.

My group envisions that the two materials, if designed and engineered smartly, can be integrated together, resulting in unique collective emergent properties and impacting renewable energy and environmental science and technology at a tremendous level. The research in my laboratory is to integrate these two materials, bridge their respective properties, and find potential solutions to the grand challenge of energy. Specifically, we will design, synthesize, and utilize the two categories of materials (namely, polymers as structural matrices and inorganic nanoparticles as functional units) to create engineered nanocomposites and nanostructures for addressing challenges in the areas of energy, catalysis, and environmental science and engineering.

Specific projects in the group include:

(1) construct uniform nanoporous carbon fibers as electrodes of supercapacitors, batteries, and capacitive desalination devices, as well as an efficient support for precious metal catalysts; (2) build a novel class of plasmonic polymer nanocomposites that are catalytically active and plasmonically responsive to visible light; and (3) design and synthesize advanced high-performance polymers such as polyimides and polyetherimides.