Dr Qilei Song has been appointed a Lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering and will continue his work on functional nanoporous materials.

Dr Qilei Song received his Bachelor and Master's degrees in Energy Engineering at Southeast University (Nanjing, China) in 2006 and 2009, respectively. His PhD was in Polymer and Soft Matter Physics and was completed in February 2014 at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, after which he continued as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. He joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London in November 2014 to pursue an independent research programme as an Imperial Junior Research Fellow. He worked closely with Professor Andrew Livingston on microporous polymer nanofilm membranes and together they recently co-authored a paper published in Nature Materials.

Dr Qilei Song was appointed Lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering in August 2016. His current research interests are focused on molecular design of functional nanoporous materials for energy, environment, and sustainability.

We interviewed Qilei to find out a little bit more about the person behind the outstanding researcher:

What inspired you to become a researcher in chemical engineering?

In China when you ask a kid “do you want to become a scientist?” they say “yes, definitely”. When I studied at university, my major was not purely scientific like Physics, Chemistry, Material Science, or fundamental like Mathematics, instead I majored in Energy Engineering. Most of my classmates went on to work in power plant design or industry, not many students continued doing research. It's not a dream I’ve had since I was a child, it's been more like a process: I gradually realised that I had the potential and the interest be a researcher. In the last year of my undergraduate study, I received a scholarship at the university to do a three-year Master's course. During that period I was very productive, I published 10+ papers in the area of clean combustion and carbon capture processes, so I became more passionate about research in energy and environment. I was also involved in many industrial projects such as a collaboration with Sinopec, a Chinese oil and gas company. I remember working on regeneration of zeolite catalysts in an FCC (fluid catalytic cracking) plant, one of the largest units in Asia, where you had to climb 30 meters on the plant (and it's really hot because it's very close to the regenerator!), and then I had to measure the flue gas temperature, the carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen oxides percentages. After I went back to the university, I realised “this is really interesting because the research you're doing in the lab can be scaled up to industry”.

Can you tell us more about your current research project?

My current research is driven by producing clean energy and protecting the environment; it is centred on membranes and porous materials. For example, porous polymers can be fabricated into membranes that have very high permeability and very high selectivity for gas and liquid separation. It is relevant to carbon capture or natural gas production where you can remove the carbon dioxide and obtain pure methane. It is also related to water purification; the membranes we are working on could be used for desalination. New materials and membrane technology have the potential to solve these global energy and environmental challenges. I am also interested in exploring some new research areas. So for example, I can apply the porous materials and membranes I am working on to developing electrode materials and ion-selective membranes in rechargeable batteries, which have great potential for renewable energy storage and transport applications.

What attracted you to Imperial College London and to this Department?

In 2013, Professor Andrew Livingston encouraged me to apply for a Junior Research Fellowship, so I applied and joined Imperial. I continued my research on membranes here for a few years and we recently had a publication in Nature Materials. Research at Imperial is different than in other universities because teamwork is very important: for example we are currently working together to develop a world-leading research centre, the Barrer Centre, where we are going to work on membrane materials and separation technology. I think my research is more like applied research, and Imperial is famous for commercialisation of research and having impact in industry. That's what excites me.

Are you looking forward to teaching students in the department?

I enjoyed tutoring and I hope to teach courses in environmental engineering. I am also thinking about giving an elective course on materials engineering or electrochemical energy systems. For students it's not all about research: many of them go on to work in banking, oil and gas or energy and they become the leaders in industry. The knowledge and the skills they learn at Imperial and in the Department are very beneficial to helping them become the next generation of leaders.

How do you enjoy spending your free time?

I live quite close to Hyde Park, and I enjoy running in the park. It really helps me to relax, especially on the weekends. In Hyde Park, you are not thinking about your work or your research, you're thinking about just nothing. I still go back to Cambridge occasionally, I have some old friends there, but I also have quite a lot of friends in London. London is so international, you get to meet people from different countries and exchange different ideas and ways of thinking.

What has been the biggest challenge in your career so far?

As my research topic is becoming more interdisciplinary involving chemistry, physics, materials science, I sometimes realise that I don't have enough knowledge in these areas. As a chemical engineer we have the ability to design reactors, test membranes and develop new processes. But we don't always have expertise in areas such as designing molecular structures. When you're doing research, the knowledge you received in the lecture room is not enough. That's a challenge but also an opportunity. I step out of my comfort zone and learn new knowledge, in the mean time, I also collaborate with experts in other disciplines. For example, I work with chemists, as they have the expertise in designing the polymers, while I design the materials, fabricate the membranes and devices, study the application, then I can also feed back to them to improve the materials design towards better performance.

Where do you see yourself in 5, 10, 20 years?

I think in 5 years I will probably have established myself and my group, my own research topic, and have become known in the community. In 10 years, I hope to have become an expert in the energy materials research area. In 20 years, I hope to have developed my leadership skills and established a research centre working on energy materials. And Imperial is a good platform to do this. But I cannot look too much into the future... because science is always changing!