Research Foci & Facilities
Research Foci
Conventional Technology
Three main types of fossil fuels, namely coal, petroleum, and natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) derived from the production of natural gas; nuclear energy, solid waste treatment and management, radioactive waste treatment, reactor materials, durability and fracture mechanics of reactor materials and structure, nuclear reprocessing, environmental effect of nuclear power, hydropower dam structures, turbine materials and design, hydrology and sediment, water quantity and quality, sources of water, environmental consideration in the design of waterway systems, advanced technologies for conventional energy production, such as gas hydrates, microwave refining, and synthetic fuel involving the conversion process from coal, natural gas and biomass into liquid fuel.
Economy and Society
Clean production process for reducing material consumption and pollution, software for waste minimization and pollution prevention, green materials for industrial application and building environment, hazards impacting environmental health, analysis of environmental risk, socio-economic and life-cycle analysis for policy making and planning, novel compounds from marine organisms, and policy on efficient energy use.
Energy Efficiency and Conservation
In electronics: energy integration for chemical and energy industries, energy-efficient computation, high-efficiency power electronics, power management integrated circuits, low power ICs, green radio, customized building for energy-saving, LED for solid state lighting, smart grids, wireless sensor networks, battery-powered electronics, and mobile electronics.
In energy-efficient buildings: lightweight heat-insulating building material, customized building for energy saving, energy saving from solid state lighting.
Production of Ethanol from Cellulosic Materials
Enhanced use of biogas produced from microbial conversion in landfills of municipal solid wastes, wastewater, industrial effluents, and manure wastes, use of planted forests for production of electricity either by direct combustion or by gasification, use of highly efficient gas turbines, energy scavenging for mobile and wireless electronics which enables systems to scavenge power from human activity or derive limited energy from ambient heat, light, radio, or vibrations.
Sustainable Technology
Sustainable energy sources including all renewable sources, such as plant matter, solar power, wind power, wave power, geothermal power and tidal power, improving energy efficiency, fuel cells for transportation and power generation, nanostructured materials for energy storage devices including fuel cells, advanced batteries and supercapacitors, nanostructured electrodes, graphene-based anode and cathode materials, battery system and package management, organic and inorganic photovoltaic materials, gasification of biomass for energy production, biorefinery and bioprocessing for energy generation, and innovative technologies for converting and recovering solid wastes into energy.