The University Lecture on “Optofluidic chips for artificial photosynthesis of carbohydrates” will take place as follows:
Date: 20 Nov 2017 (Mon)
Time: 14:00 – 15:00
Venue: Lecture Hall, G013, N21, University of Macau
The speaker is:
Dr. Xuming Zhang
Associate Professor, Hong Kong Polytechnic University
The Lecture is:
“Optofluidic chips for artificial photosynthesis of carbohydrates”
Abstract:
Artificial photosynthesis (APS) mimics natural photosynthesis (NPS) to store solar energy into chemical compounds. In fact, the NPS is naturally an optofluidic system since the cells (typical size 10 to 100 µm) of green plants enable light capture, biochemical and enzymatic reactions and the related material transports in a microscale, aqueous environment. Long history of evolution has equipped the NPS with the remarkable merits such as large surface-area-to-volume ratio, fast diffusion of small molecule and precise control of mass transfer. The APS is expected to enjoy the same merits of NPS and even provides more functionalities if optofluidics technology is introduced. This talk will discuss our recent progresses in making use of the optofluidic chips to cascade the photocatalytic and enzymatic reactions to produce glucose using CO2 and sunlight, which replicates and simplifies those processes in the NPS. We hope this study, in a long run, may alleviate the long problems of food shortage of human society and may prepare for space colonization.
Biography:
Dr. Xuming Zhang is currently an Associate Professor with Department of Applied Physics, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He received BEng degree from the University of Science & Technology of China in 1994, and Ph.D. degree from Nanyang Technological University in 2006. He has published more than 80 journal articles in peer-reviewed journals. His research work has been extensively reported and highlighted by international media and professional journals. His research interests include microfluidics, nano-optics, sensors and photocatalysis.
For more details, kindly find the event poster, abstract and bio.
