Two young SFT researchers, Dr Fan Di and Dr Huang Qiyao, have been recognised by the Young Scientists Fund 2022 of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) for their research projects. The funding has been made available to Hong Kong researchers and universities for the first time ever. Each project is granted RMB 300,000 to support basic research work for three years.
Dr Fan Di - Corporate Carbon Neutrality Goal Settings in Chinese Industrial Sectors: Antecedents and Consequences
Climate change is a huge challenge, and countries are working to reduce carbon emissions. Companies play a significant role in the process, but many Chinese businesses have yet to set their own carbon goals. Their lack of participation can make it difficult for China to achieve its 2060 carbon neutrality target. In response, Dr Fan Di, Assistant Professor of SFT and member of the Research Centre for Resources Engineering towards Carbon Neutrality (RCRE) and his research team explore why Chinese companies set carbon goals (or not) and what happens when they do. The research team believes that companies are more likely to set carbon goals if they have confident leaders, are close to their targets, and feel the need to protect the environment. They also think that setting goals helps companies to reduce emissions and boost profits.
The team will study different Chinese companies and use experiments to test their ideas. The findings can help researchers, companies, and governments make better decisions about managing the environment and running businesses in a sustainable way.
The research will show how setting environmental goals affects company success. Even if some companies are struggling, the team believes that setting carbon goals can help them prosper in the long-run. Policymakers can use the findings to support businesses in becoming greener, helping China to achieve its carbon reduction targets and improving life for everyone.
Dr Huang Qiyao - Study on the structures and performance of energy storage textiles enabled by tailored fiber placement
With the rapid development of smart electronic textiles that are lightweight, multifunctional, and can be integrated into various structures, the corresponding power systems needs to have high energy performance, excellent flexibility, and wearability. Developing fibre-based energy storage devices for direct integration into textile electronic devices is a promising strategy to achieve the wear comfort and durability of wearable electronics. However, current fibre-based energy storage devices are vulnerable during the fabrication and integration processes which leads to performance degradation and even failure.
Dr Huang Qiyao, Assistant Professor of SFT and member of the Research Institute for Intelligent Wearable Systems (RI-IWEAR), aims to develop a universal approach to achieve the flexible fabrication and integration of fibrous electrodes into flexible battery textiles. In this project, high-performance flexible electrode fibres will be developed, and then integrated into battery textiles via a simple embroidery technology[WL1]. Through the rational designs of materials and structures, optimisation of device configurations, and a study on the failure mechanism of such batteries upon fabrication and mechanical deformation, the stability of the structure and electrochemical performance of battery textiles shall be greatly improved. More importantly, new types of flexible battery textiles with customisable configurations will be fabricated. The success of this project will provide new scientific insights into the study of energy storage textiles, and new knowledge for the fabrication and integration of fibre-based batteries in applications of smart electronic textiles and wearable electronics.
Prof. Christina Wong, Director of Research and Innovation at PolyU, said, “We are thankful for the support from the NSFC Young Scientists Fund for Hong Kong researchers, which will facilitate and strengthen our research projects and the professional development of our scientists. PolyU has exceptional scholars and experts who are committed to interdisciplinary research work that have real impacts on the technological, social and economic development of Hong Kong and China."
