Dr Wei Wang | UNSW Research

My Expertise

Fire Safety Engineering; Flame Retardant Materials; Antistatic Materials; Bio-inspired Fire Resistant Coatings; Lithium Battery Safety; Fire simulation and modelling; Molecule dynamics of functional polymer composites.

Keywords

fire

flame retardance

battery energy storage system

battery materials

biopolymers and renewable polymers

polymer matrix composites

layer-by-layer polyelectrolyte deposition

organic-inorganic hybrid composites

computational simulation

numerical analysis

Fields of Research (FoR)

Fire safety engineering, Composite and hybrid materials, Functional materials, Polymers and plastics, Nanofabrication, growth and self assembly, Inorganic materials (incl. nanomaterials)

Biography

Dr Wei Wang is a lecturer and an ARC DECRA Fellow at School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales (UNSW). He has been working in the fire safety engineering for over ten years, obtaining his PhDs (fire safety materials and engineering) from the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) and the University of Science & Technology of China (USTC) in 2019. In the same year, he joined the ARC Fire Training Centre, UNSW and continued researching bio-inspired flame retardants, fire-resistant polymer composites and fire safety of new energy battery materials. In addition to fundamental research, Dr Wang has also been actively engaging with associated local industries on fire resistant polymer foams and with governmental institutions such as Fire Rescue NSW on the fire safety study of new energy vehicles.

In the field of fire safety materials, Dr Wang has published over 80 peer reviewed articles, 2 book chapter, 2 conference papers, and 2 authorised patents and has achieved an H-index of 35 with over 3000 citations. In 2021 and 2022, he was recognised by Stanford University as in the Top 2% of Highly Cited Scientists. In 2022, he received an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA 2023) for his project “Multifunctional Biomass Coatings for Electrostatic Induced Fire Hazards”.

My Grants

2023: Wei Wang, Guan Heng Yeoh, UNSW MME School Infrastructure Scheme. $50,000 AUD
2023: Wei Wang. University of New South Wales-Faculty Matching Funds (Totalling $90.000 k AUD), Grant number: RG230135.
2022: Wei Wang. the ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA 2023). Titled “Multifunctional Biomass Coatings for Electrostatic Induced Fire Hazards”. (Totalling $436.554k), Funder reference number: DE230100180
2021: Anthony Chun Yin Yuen, Guan Heng Yeoh, Shaun Chan, Wei Wang, Eric Wai Ming Lee, Nadia Chek Lun Chow, UNSW International Seed Grant 2021. Titled “Artificial Neural Network Modelling Integrated with Molecular Dynamics Data for Detailed Description of CFD Pyrolytic Process”. (Totalling $5k)

My Qualifications

Sept 2014 to Oct 2019 | Doctor of Engineering, Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, the City University of Hong Kong
Aug 2013 to Jul 2019 | Doctor of Fire Safety Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, the University of Science & Technology of China

My Awards

2023 | The World Top 2% Highly Cited Scientists, Stanford University
2023 | ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, ARC DECRA Fellow, Australian Research Council
2022 | The World Top 2% Highly Cited Scientists, Stanford University
2019 | Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Nomination Award of USTC, USTC
2017 | the Pollyanna Chu Excellent Doctoral Scholarship, Chinese Academy of Sciences
2017 | Second-Class Academic Scholarship, USTC
2016 | the China National Scholarship for Doctoral Student, Ministry of Education
2016 | First-Class Academic Scholarship, USTC
2016 | Peter Ho Conference Scholarship, CityU
2015 | ‘Dushu Lake’ Scholarship in USTC CityU Joint Advanced Research Centre

My Research Activities

Dr Wang’s research focuses on the following four areas:

1) Antistatic, flame-retardant and eco-friendly biomass coatings; 2) Bioinspired assembly: to design and fabricate hierarchical structures and interfacing materials inspired by nature for advanced performance, simulation of materials; 3) Safety of lithium batteries: to develop advanced separators and electrolytes for safe lithium batteries and to evaluate the fire risk of commercial batteries, Fire modelling and simulations, Molecule dynamics; 4) Nanocomposites: to prepare high-performance polymer/nanofillers composites, membranes and fibres (including bio-based natural materials) with advanced functions.

Phosphorus based flame retardants
Biomass-based fire-resistant coatings
Fabricate ceramic materials to construct layer-by-layer flame retardancy coatings and composites
Molecule dynamics of functional polymer materials
Green and durable flame retardants for application of fire-resistance out wall building materials
Antistatic and flame retardancy coatings and application on polymer foams, membranes, and aerogels
Flame retardant materials to obtain advanced batteries with high safety and performance
Numerical study of thermal management system and battery fire safety
Fabricate carbon-based inorganic materials as nanofillers to enhance mechanical performance and flame retardancy
Employ natural biomass to prepare advanced layer-by-layer coatings for improving flame retardancy and anti-static performance of polyolefin foams
Advanced flame retardant, conductive and eco-friendly coatings and further application in polymer foams and composites, building materials, manufacturing materials and electronics
Use UV-vis technology to thesis high transparency and flame retardancy coatings for polymer foams with various application scenarios

My Editorial Activities

Guest Editor, Editorial Board, Energy Materials (Impact factor: 11.8), Special Issue: Advancements in Safety Materials for Next-Generation Energy Technologies
Guest Editor, Polymers (IF: 5.0), Special Issue: Flame-Retardant Polymeric Mater: Synthesis Application
Topic Editor, Molecules (Impact Factor: 4.6), Special Issue: Natural Polymers for Fire Safety
Topic Editor, Polymers (IF: 5.0), Special Issue: Advanced Polymers for High-Performance Batteries

My Research Supervision

Supervision keywords

computational modelling

Areas of supervision

Topics of Research:

This project aims to develop an antistatic and fire-resistant spray biomass coating by self-assembling flame-retardant biomass polyurea and electrically conductive nanomaterials, to address the electrostatic and flammability issues associated with the polymeric matrices. To develop this advanced biomass coatings, four specific objectives will be addressed in this proposal:

-Design, synthesise and characterise biomass flame-retardant particles and conductive nanomaterials.
-Prepare antistatic and fire-resistant biomass waterborne coatings by self-assembling flame-retardant polyurea and conductive inorganic nanosheets, followed by application on polymer substrates.
-Evaluate the antistatic property, mechanical performance, and fire-resistance of the biomass coatings and the treated polymer substrates, including the antistatic and flame retardancy mechanisms.
-Understand and establish the component-structure-properties correlations of the conductive and fire-resistant biomass coatings for the polymer substrates.

Minimal requirements:

Majored in Materials Science, Chemical Science, Mechanical Engineering, and other related fields.

Interested in research areas: polymer composites, flame retardants, inorganic materials, organic synthesis, conductive polymers/inorganics, and multifunctional bio-inspired coatings.
Course marks: required.
IELTS: required.

Other expectations:

Has hands-on experience and skills about molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model; battery safety materials; C4D; Maya; COMSOL Multiphysics;