Title: Recent Advances in Light-Responsive Gas-Permeable Membranes  

Speaker: Professor Shuaifei Zhao (Deakin University)  

Inviter: Researcher Wei Yanying  

Time: 3:00–5:00 PM, Thursday, September 4, 2025  

Venue: Meeting Room 214, Building 16, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering  

Organizer: School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering  

Abstract:  

  Gas-permeable membranes play a vital role in applications such as carbon capture, hydrogen purification, and air separation. However, conventional gas-permeable membranes have fixed permeation properties and lack adaptability under dynamic operating conditions. In recent years, stimuli-responsive membranes have emerged as a promising alternative, capable of real-time modulation of permeability and selectivity upon external triggers. Among various stimuli-responsive membranes, light-responsive membranes stand out due to their unique advantages, including remote and non-contact activation, precise spatiotemporal control, and switchable functionality. As an emerging research field, light-responsive gas-permeable membranes have not yet been systematically reviewed in terms of design strategies, light-induced gas transport mechanisms, and potential applications. This presentation will provide a comprehensive analysis of these key aspects, offer a structured classification of light-responsive membrane architectures, deeply examine their functional characteristics, and detail the transport mechanisms regulated by light stimuli.

Speaker Biography:  

  Shuaifei Zhao is a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Frontier Materials, Deakin University, Australia, where he currently supervises 10 PhD students. He is the newly appointed Editor of Separation and Purification Technology and a globally recognized expert in separation processes. Ranked within the top 0.5% in the field of chemical engineering (155 out of 78,314 researchers), he has been listed among the World’s Top 2% Scientists for five consecutive years since 2020. To date, he has published over 170 peer-reviewed journal papers, accumulating more than 11,800 citations with an H-index of 61 (Google Scholar). He has also authored the book *Advances in Functional Separation Membranes*, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. His research group focuses on membrane separation technologies for environmental and energy applications, including water treatment, resource recovery, and carbon capture. The team also conducts applied research in areas such as recycling of spent batteries, reprocessing of mining tailings, and battery thermal management.