My Expertise
Fire Safety Engineering; Flame Retardant Materials; Antistatic Materials; Bio-inspired Fire Resistant Coatings; Lithium Battery Safety.
Keywords
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 currently a DECRA Fellow at the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, UNSW and the core researcher of the ARC Training Centre for Fire Safety. Currently, his research works mainly focus on multifunctional flame-retardant biocoatings/composites, the fire safety of lithium batteries, and the fire safety modelling of battery pack systems.
Dr Wang has been working in fire safety materials for ten years, he obtained his...view more
Dr Wei Wang is currently a DECRA Fellow at the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, UNSW and the core researcher of the ARC Training Centre for Fire Safety. Currently, his research works mainly focus on multifunctional flame-retardant biocoatings/composites, the fire safety of lithium batteries, and the fire safety modelling of battery pack systems.
Dr Wang has been working in fire safety materials for ten years, he obtained his PhD (fire safety materials) from the University of Science & Technology of China (USTC) and the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) in 2019. In the same year, he joined the ARC Fire Training Centre and continued researching bio-inspired flame retardants, fire-resistant polymer composites and fire safety of new energy battery materials. Besides making progress on fundamental research, Dr Wang has also been actively engaging with associated local industries like PJ Bowers Pty Ltd and Flame Security International on the project of the static and fire safety of polyethylene and polypropylene foams and governmental institutions such as Fire and Rescue NSW on fire safety study of new energy vehicles.
As of Jan 2023, in the field of fire safety materials, Dr Wang has published over 60 peer-reviewed articles (all are Q1) and 2 authorised patents and achieved an H-index of 31 with 2400 citations. In 2022, he received the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA 2023) titled “Multifunctional Biomass Coatings for Electrostatic Induced Fire Hazards” in the scope of fire safety Engineering. Also, Dr Wang was selected into the Top 2% Highly Cited Scientists, 2021, compiled by Stanford University. Besides, Dr Wang has extensive editorship and reviewing experiences. He is currently serving as topic editor (Natural Polymers for Fire Safety) of Molecules (IF:4.927), member of the American Chemical Society, guest editor of the American Journal of Nano Research and Applications, editorial board member of the American Journal of Polymer Science and Technology, and reviewer for high impact journals, such as Chemical Engineering Journal, Carbohydrate Polymers, Progress in Organic Coatings, Energy & Fuels, Polymers, Journal of Composites Science, Materials & Design, Molecules, etc.
My Grants
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
2022, ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, ARC DECRA Fellow, Australian Research Council
2021, The Top 2% Highly Cited Scientists worldwide, Stanford University
2019, Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Nomination Award of USTC, USTC
2017, the Pollyanna Chu Excellent Doctoral Scholarship, Chinese Academy of Sciences
2016, the China National Scholarship for Doctoral Student, Ministry of Education
2016, the First-Class Academic Scholarship, USTC
2016, Peter Ho Conference Scholarship, CityU
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; 3) Safety of lithium batteries: to develop advanced separators and electrolytes for safe lithium batteries and to evaluate the fire risk of commercial batteries; 4) Nanocomposites: to prepare high-performance polymer/nanofillers composites, membranes and fibres (including bio-based natural materials) with advanced functions.
- Phosphorus based flame retardants;
- Organic synthesis of biomass-based fire-resistant coatings;
- Electrical conductive polymers and inorganics;
- Fabricate ceramic materials to construct layer-by-layer flame retardancy coatings and composites to obtain safe, eco-friendly and recycle foams, membranes, and composites;
- Synthesis of Phosphorus contained green and durable flame retardants for application of fire-resistance out wall building materials;
- Research on antistatic and flame retardancy coatings and application on polymer foams, membranes, and aerogels;
- Employ flame retardant materials to obtain advanced batteries with high safety and performance;
- Fabricate carbon-based inorganic materials as nanofillers to enhance mechanical performance and flame retardancy;
- Employ natural polymers such as alginate, chitosan, cellulose, chitin and phytic acid to prepare advanced layer-by-layer coatings for improving flame retardancy and anti-static performance of polyolefin foams;
- In-situ polymerization of conductive polymers and one-/two- dimensional inorganic materials including polyaniline, carbon nanotube, graphene, MXene, etc., to fabricate advanced flame retardancy, 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 Research Supervision
Supervision keywords
Areas of supervision
PhD Scholarships are available now.
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:
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Majored in Materials Science, Chemical Science, Mechanical Engineering, and other related fields.
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Interested in research areas: polymer composites, flame retardants, inorganic materials, organic synthesis, conductive polymers/inorganics, and multifunctional bio-inspired coatings.
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Course marks: required.
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IELTS: required.
Other expectations:
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Has hands-on experience and skills about molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model; battery safety materials; C4D; Maya; COMSOL Multiphysics;
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Strong oral and written communication skills.
Contact
ORCID as entered in ROS
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5788-6314