About

The Nanomaterials Centre is an interdisciplinary research centre at The University of Queensland, based at the School of Chemical Engineering. Associate Professor Jingwei Hou is the current Director. The Centre brings together more than 100 affiliated researchers, including research staff and PhD students from both the School and the AIBN.

It was founded in 2000 by Professor Max Lu, now Vice-Chancellor of the University of Surrey, and from 2003 to 2013 formed part of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Functional Nanomaterials. Professor Lianzhou Wang led the Centre through the years that followed and built it into one of the largest nanomaterials research groupings in Australia.

Research at the Centre is organised around four areas. Separation covers MOF glasses and mixed-matrix membranes for gas and liquid separation. Clean energy covers batteries, perovskite photovoltaics, solar fuels and catalysis. Optics covers luminescent materials, X-ray imaging and optical sensing. Health care covers nanoparticle platforms for imaging, diagnosis and drug delivery. The common ground is control of structure at the nanoscale, and turning that control into materials, devices and processes that work outside the laboratory.

The Centre is made up of seven independent research groups, led by Associate Professor Jingwei Hou, Dr Peng Chen, Associate Professor Ruirui Qiao, Associate Professor Bin Luo, Dr Zhiliang Wang, Dr Haijiao Lu and Professor Michael Yu, alongside a number of independently funded research fellows. Between them, Centre members hold ARC Future Fellowships, ARC Industry Fellowships, ARC DECRA Fellowships and NHMRC fellowships, and lead Linkage and industry-partnered projects with Australian and international companies.

The Centre has well-equipped laboratories in the Andrew N. Liveris Building and the AIBN, housing extensive synthesis and characterisation infrastructure. The interdisciplinary team includes chemists, chemical engineers, materials scientists and biomedical researchers, with many of the senior researchers collaborating with other institutes at UQ, including the School of Mechanical and Mining, School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queensland Brain Institute (QBI), Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI), Institute of Molecular Biosciences (IMB), Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), and the Diamantina Institute (UQDI).