PhD candidate recognised with Great Britain-China Educational Trust grant

Mr Huiqiang Lu

Final year PhD candidate Mr Huiqiang Lu has received the prestigious grant from the Great Britain-China Educational Trust to support his research.

The Great Britain-China Educational Trust is a charity supporting Chinese students in the UK and British postgraduate students for the study of Chinese language through its two funded awards. 

The grant will support Huiqiang’s research into the interactions between polymers and high-pressure carbon dioxide based on ATR-FTIR spectroscopy and ATR-FTIR imaging. 

Huiqiang completed his undergraduate studies at Donghua University in Shanghai, China. He followed this with a Master’s degree in composites in the Department of Aeronautics at Imperial College London.

Since joining Professor Sergei Kazarian’s research group in the Department of Chemical Engineering in June 2018, he has published five papers in several top journals, including the Chemical Engineering Journal, Journal of Membrane Science, and Macromolecules. He currently has one book chapter under review and several manuscripts awaiting submission.

Commenting on his award Huiqiang said: “It's a great honour to be awarded. I would like to thank my supervisor Professor Kazarian for supporting my award applications and providing excellent guidance during my PhD studies.

Many thanks also to my collaborators Professor Harumi Sato, Dr. Hideyuki Shinzawa, Dr. Diana Iruretagoyena Ferrer, Dr. Yi Liu and Professor Konstantin N. Mikhelson.” 

Professor Kazarian added: “This is excellent news for Huiqiang and very well deserved.

The main objective of Huiqiang’s PhD project is to demonstrate the use of ATR-FTIR spectroscopic imaging as a valuable analytical approach for investigation of biopolymers and their blends subjected to high-pressure CO₂. These challenging experiments have already provided interesting results published in leading journals.”

Huiqiang is currently in the writing stage of his PhD, alongside which he is investigating the isothermal crystallization process of UCST polymer blends.