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Consul General Zheng Xiyuan visits Materials Innovation Factory

The Consul General Zheng Xiyuan, alongside colleagues from the Consulate-General of the People’s Republic of China in Manchester, visited the Materials Innovation Factory  to meet  students supported by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) programme,  tour the MIF facilities and discuss wider partnerships with University representatives.

Hosted by Executive Pro-Vice Chancellor for Science and Engineering, Professor Wiebe Van Der Hoek, the visit provided the opportunity for six CSC joint PhD students based in the MIF to present  their research projects and share their experiences of studying and living in Liverpool.

Wang Xiaoyan presented his recent work about covalent organic frameworks (COFs) as highly active organic photocatalysts, which was published in Nature Chemistry.

Bai Yang exhibited his discovery of organic polymer photocatalysts through the integration of experiment, theory and high throughput computational scanning (accepted by Journal of the American Chemical Society).

Second year PhD student Cui Peng presented his work on using automation and computation to accelerate the discovery the crystalline solids.

He Ai presented her work on crystalline membranes for versatile water purification, and Hu Dingyue shared her research on cathode materials which can be either scaled up for industrial application as well as being more environmentally friendly. Kai Aiting, a first year PhD student talked about her research work and experience on porous liquids.

The presentations were followed by discussions between the Consul General and the students about their experiences of studying at the University and living in Liverpool.

Mr Zheng was given a tour of the £81million Materials Innovation Factory facility which is at the forefront of advanced materials research, design and development.

The Consul General and colleagues also met with University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Dame Janet Beer, and members of the senior management team .

Professor Wiebe Van der Hoek said: “It was a great pleasure to welcome the Consul General Mr Zheng Xiyuan to the Materials Innovation Factory and to the University. It was great to hear the experiences of our CSC PhD students of living in the city and of undertaking exciting research projects for the MIF. The CSC is a fantastic scheme and one which the MIF and the University hopes to benefit from further. This visit has certainly strengthened the connections and friendship between the MIF. the University and China.“

The University of Liverpool and China Scholarship Council Awards scholarship programme supports Chinese postgraduate research students to do their PhD abroad in Liverpool.

The programme has recently been extended and upgraded  with around 30 awarded candidates for the University and up to 15 for the MIF each year.

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