RESEARCH INTERESTS:

• Bubbles, droplets, fibres and particles
• Encapsulation and controlled release
• Entropy and exergy
• Flow bifurcation and stability
• Heat transfer with thermal waves and resonance
• Microfluidics & nanofluidics
• Nanoparticles and nanofluids
• Numerical simulation and nonlinear computation
• Soft manufacture, soft materials, soft robots
• Turbulence

Recent RGC-GRF Projects

17210319: Engineering micromotors using droplet microfluidics
17204718: Liquid-repellent surfaces: microfluidic-droplet-based fabrication of springtail-cuticle-like porous surfaces
17237316: Chemoembolization microparticles: microfluidic fabrication and characterization
17211115: Engineering embolic microparticles with uniform shape and size
17207914: Microfluidic fabrication of thermally-smart nanoparticle colloidosomes with single or multiple compartments

BIOGRAPHY:

Prof. L. Q. “Rick” Wang received his PhD from University of Alberta, Canada, and is currently a chair professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Hong Kong (HKU). He also serves as the Director and the Chief Scientist for the Laboratory for Nanofluids and Thermal Engineering at the Zhejiang Institute of Research and Innovation (HKU-ZIRI), the University of Hong Kong. Prof. Wang has over 20 years of university experience in transport phenomena, materials, nanotechnology, biotechnology, energy & environment, thermal & power engineering, and mathematics, and ~2 years of industry experience in technology and IP development/management/transfer as the Chief Scientist & the Global CTO. In addition to 6 authored scholarly monographs/books, 4 edited scholarly monographs, 5 book chapters, 70+ keynote lectures at international conferences and 130+ invited lectures in universities/industries/organizations, Prof. Wang has published 450+ papers, many of which have been widely used by researchers all over the world, and been ranked amongst the top 1% of most-cited scientists according to Clarivate Analytics’ Essential Science Indicator. Prof. Wang has also filed 30+ patents/software copyrights, and developed, with an international team consisting of about 100 scientists and engineers, a state-of-the-art thermal control system for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) on the International Space Station (ISS) that ensures AMS and all its sub-detectors working at their designed temperatures ± 1 ℃ for an environment temperature variation from -40 ℃ to 60 ℃ every 90 minutes.

Prof. Wang’s work has been widely featured by local, national and international media, and received recognition through a number of awards, including the 2018 TechConnect Global Innovation Award, the 2018 Silver Medal of the International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva, the 2017 OSA Innovation Award, and the 2016 First Outstanding Achievement Award of Hangzhou Oversea Scholars.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

• Zhou C. M., Zhu P. A., Tian Y., Xu M. and Wang L. Q. 2019, Engineering micromotors with droplet microfluidics, ACS Nano 13, 6319-6329.
• Zhu P. A., Chen R. F. and Wang L. Q. 2019, Topography-directed hot-water super-repellent surfaces, Advanced Science 6, 1900798.
• Zhu P. A., Kong T. T., Tian Y., Tang X., Tian X. W. and Wang L. Q. 2018, Superwettability with antithetic states: fluid repellency in immiscible liquids, Materials Horizons 5, 1156-1165.
• Tang X. and Wang L. Q. 2018, Loss-free photo-manipulation of droplets by pyroelectro-trapping on superhydrophobic surfaces, ACS Nano 12, 8994-9004.
• Kong T. T., Stone H. A., Wang L. Q., and Shum H. C. 2018, Dynamic regimes of electrified liquid filaments, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America, 201801053.
• Tang X., Xiong H. R., Kong T. T., Tian Y., Li W. D. and Wang L. Q. 2018, Bioinspired nanostructured surfaces for on-demand bubble transportation. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 10, 3029-3038.
• Tian Y., Zhu P. A., Tang X., Zhou C. M., Wang J. M., Kong T. T., Xu M. and Wang L. Q. 2017, Large-scale water collection of bioinspired cavity-microfibers, Nature Communications 8, 1080.
• Zhu P. A., Kong T. T., Tang X. and Wang L. Q. 2017, Well-defined porous membranes for robust omniphobic surfaces via microfluidic emulsion templating, Nature Communications 8, 15823.
• Tang X., Zhu P. A., Tian Y., Zhou X. C., Kong T. T. and Wang L. Q. 2017, Mechano-regulated surface for manipulating liquid droplets, Nature Communications 8, 14831.
• Zhu P. A. and Wang L. Q. 2017, Passive and active droplet generation with microfluidics: a review, Lab on a Chip 17, 34-75.