NTU-CEE Distinguished Seminar Series: Professor Wen Zhang

Organized By

CEE Seminar Committee

Host

Dr. Sakcham Bairoliya

Topic

Nanobubbles: Generation, Properties and Applications

About the Seminar

Nanobubbles (NBs) in water exhibit many appealing characteristics, such as a long residence time of bubbles in water due to their low buoyancy and stability against coalesces, collapse or burst. Long retention times in water potentially enhance chemical reactions and mass transfer in processes such as ozonation or aeration.

In addition, gaseous NBs may increase the solubility of the gas species (e.g., ozone, oxygen or other gases) that may have low solubility in water or other liquids. Therefore, NBs hold promise in green and sustainable engineering applications in diverse fields (e.g., water/wastewater treatment, food processing, medical applications, and agriculture. This presentation will give an overview of the common generation processes of NBs and their respective principles.

Particularly, we will focus on the membrane-bubbling process that our group has been studying since 2016 and demonstrated advantages such as the ability to continuously generate a nanobubble fluid with homogenous bubble sizes and tunable compositions. The governing factors such as the membrane pore size, surface hydrophobicity, injection gas pressure on the produced bubble sizes and concentrations in water will be discussed. Then, the colloidal properties of nanobubbles such as stability, dissolution and aeration behaviour in water have been examined and will be introduced. These properties are important for many applications of NBs such as chemical reactions, environmental remediation, and agricultural irrigation.

About the Speaker

Dr. Wen Zhang is a professor of Newark College of Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology. He is a licensed Professional Engineer (P.E.) registered in the States of New Jersey and Delaware. He is also an American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists (AAEES) Board Certified Environmental Engineer (BCEE). Dr. Zhang's research focuses on colloidal interfaces and processes that are crucial for environmental and chemical engineering applications.

His expertise includes environmental behavior and interfacial processes for nanomaterials, microplastics and soft particles such as microbes and bubbles, reactive membrane filtration systems for desalination and emerging contaminant removal, microalgal removal and harvesting processing using magnetophoretic separation and membrane filtration processes.

His latest research also expands to agricultural applications of nanobubbles, food disinfection and nutrient recovery/reuse from wastewater. More details are available at Zhang's website: www.wenresearch.com.

Registration

Click here for registration (Closes on 20 May 2024, 08:50 am)