Report Topic: Biomimetic Design and Preparation of Artificial Silk Fibers

Report Speaker: Jianming Chen (Professor, Hong Kong Polytechnic University )

Report Time: 5 September 2023 (Tuesday) 11:00

Report Venue: Conference Hall 536, College of Materials Science and Engineering

Biography

        Dr. Jianming Chen is the Research Assistant Professor in the School of Fashion and Textiles and a member in the Research Institute of Intelligent Wearable Systems (RI-IWEAR) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). Before joining PolyU, he had several postdoctoral experiences in different universities /institutes, such as Chinese University of Hong Kong, RIKEN (Japan) and City University of Hong Kong.  Dr. Chen is mainly focused on silk-based materials and functional polymers, including the spider silk assembly mechanism, biomimetic spinning, shape memory polymers, textile-based flexible sensors and intelligent orthosis. To date, he has published more than 30 journal papers with the highest impact factor of 29.4. He was granted the excellent oral presentation award in 2021, RIKEN presidential appreciation award in 2021 and silver award of international exhibition of Geneve in 2022. Dr. Chen served as the guest editor for the journal of Coatings and Frontiers in Materials. He is the member of polymer society and fiber society in Japan. Dr. Chen obtained various funds in different regions as the principal investigator, including the NSFC young scientists fund, JSPS early-career scientists fund, PolyU DGRF fund and RI-IWEAR seed fund.

Abstract

In recent decades, it has been a hot topic to prepare high-performance artificial fibers with comparable mechanical properties as natural spider silks. Currently, there are many factors to affect the mechanical properties of artificial silk fibers, thereof the most critical one is that we cannot fully replicate and create a native-like spinning condition, which allows the sophisticated phase separation and moderate transition of secondary structure. This talk will introduce some representative works in our group and give a perspective on the future development of high-performance silk fibers.