Advanced Membranes and Porous Materials Research Center congratulates Zhiping Lai for being promoted to the rank of Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering.  On the evening of May 8, KAUST celebrated this promotion, amongst others, at a faculty recognition gala dinner.  

 

Zhiping Lai received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2003. In 2009, he joined KAUST as a founding faculty in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore where he held an Assistant Professor position. He was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor in 2013. Professor Lai's main area of research is membranes technology where he investigates, at a fundamental level, the relationship between the membrane microstructures and the membrane performance and develops innovative ideas to improve the membrane performance.

 

Professor Lai's research is fully integrated into the Advanced Membranes and Porous Materials (AMPM) Research Center and he is considered a valuable member contributing to the Center's mission. An example of his contributions relates to the pioneering work on synthesis of MOF membranes. In addition to center activities, he has formed and nurtured several international collaborations. He has published over 90 papers several in top tier journals including Nature Nanotechnology and JACS. Furthermore, he has several patents to his credit, and has been active in obtaining funding from internal sources (four Competitive Research Grants) and external industry grants.

 

He is very honored by the recognition received which is an acknowledgment of the research achievements of his group over the last ten years.

 

“Over the last ten years, we have developed several intellectual properties including a ZIF-8 membrane with superior performance for the separation of propylene/propane and C2/C3 mixtures; a nanoporous carbon composite membrane with excellent water desalination performance; and a highly porous polymer membranes with order of magnitude higher flux than commercial ultrafiltration membranes,” explains Prof. Lai.

 

“All of these applications are very important to Saudi Arabia as well as to any part of the world. We now target to cooperate with KAUST economic development team to commercialize these intellectual properties to make real impacts on the society,” he notes.