I got my both my Bachelor (2015) and PhD (2020), under the guidance of Dr. Haiqing Lin, in Chemical Engineering at University at Buffalo. My work primarily involved surface modified membranes for water purification applications. My team and I have authored a review article in Membranes about various materials that improve antifouling properties. I also co-authored another article published in Journal of Membrane Science regarding photo-responsive materials to achieve self-cleaning behavior.
I then studied the effect of water state in hydrophilic polymer on water and salt transport properties, resulted in a first-author article in Journal of Membrane Science and the Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research Award from ACS POLY. I then worked on surface modification of ultrafiltration membrane to improve antifouling properties using low surface energy materials. My team and I successfully demonstrated that surface fluorination by directing coating of perfluoropolymer and grafting of polysiloxane on membrane surface via polydopamine can improve the antifouling properties of UF membranes. These works were published in I&EC and Soft Matter.