Dr Fang Bo, Research Assistant Professor, is the grateful recipient of two external funds in 2023, including a General Research Fund (GRF) for RMB 1.1 million and National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grant for RMB 300,000. The grants allow Dr Fang to pursue his interest in the structural optimisation and performance improvement of new-frontier functional fibres.
After joining SFT in 2022, his focus has been on the scalable production of ultrafine conductive polymer fibres by using an innovative strategy of a good solvent exchange. The GRF project titled "Highly Crystalline Conducting Polymer Fibers via Good Solvent Exchange: Mechanism, Fabrication and Application" will conduct multidimensional demonstrations of the molecular migration theory during a good solvent exchange process, thus further establishing a general protocol to fabricate crystalline conductive polymer fibres and developing advanced fibrous electronics.
The NSFC project titled "Study on the Controllable Fabrication and Ion-Regulation Performance of Ultrafine PEDOT Fibres" extends the good solvent exchange strategy to the industrial production of a specific type of conductive polymer fibre - ultrafine poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) fibres, to build a relationship between ion regulation performance and the crystalline state, and manufacture durable ion-based devices. Dr Fang is committed to meeting the research objectives as he wishes to create reliable high-performance functional fibres and further the development of the functional fibre industry.
