Our principal research focus has been to address the major global challenges of clean and sustainable energy and water supply, and to advance innovative and equitable health care.
To successfully meet these challenges, the centre brings together expertise from chemistry, biology, engineering, and pharmacy. Several groups work and collaborate within the centre, led by senior researchers Professor Lianzhou Wang (clean energy) and Professor Gordon Xu (health care). During 2012 Lianzhou Wang - Professor of Chemical Engineering and AIBN affiliated group leader - took over leadership of the centre from founding director Professor Max Lu.
A major component of research at the nanomaterials centre investigates new nanomaterials for clean energy generation, storage and applications.
Current environmental research at the Centre focuses on conversion of feedstock to biofuels and chemicals and applications in agriculture and veterinary science.
Health care is another application area in which functional nanomaterials show great promise. Centre research efforts focus on nanomaterials for drug, protein and gene delivery as well as materials for biosensing.