Dingchang Yang - PhD student (2023-present)
Dingchang Yang is a PhD student under the co-supervision of Dr Qilei Song and Prof. Magda Titirici. She received BEng in Chemistry at North China Electric Power University. Then she completed MEng in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Nanyang Technological University and carried out research in electrodialysis-based processes for resource recovery, with Dr Qianhong She. Her PhD research project is focused on synthesis and testing of polymer membranes for electrodialysis-based sustainable processes, including plastic recycling and resource recovery.
Email: d.yang23@imperial.ac.uk
Brief Introduction to Research
Plastic waste is a severe environmental challenge. Over 9 billion tons of plastics have been produced to date; more than 79% of this waste ends up in landfills or is accumulated in the ocean. Therefore, it is urgent to develop environmentally-benign strategies to replace and recycle plastics to achieve a circular economy and reduce its carbon footprint. One promising approach is depolymerization by hydrolysis of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) to produce terephthalic acid, which can be recycled for plastics re-manufacturing. Membrane separation processes, such as electrodialysis, are promising for energy-efficient and environmental friendly separation and purification of organic acids. Polymer membranes with improved separation selectivity are desired for the electrodialysis processes.
To solve these challenges Dingchang's PhD research is focused on development of ion-selective polymer membranes, and testing their performance in electrodialysis processes for separation and purification of organic acids. The project will involve synthesis and fabrication of polymer membranes, characterization of membranes with a variety of techniques, and testing of separation performance in an electrodialysis module. The best performing membranes will be thoroughly modelled and characterized to understand the molecular interactions and fundamental transport mechanism leading to improved performance and stability. Besides plastic recycling, Dingchang is also working on other side projects on electrodialysis processes for resource recovery, such as lithium extraction from brines.
Publications
Dingchang Yang, Yijie Yang , Toby Wong, Sunshine Iguodala , Anqi Wang , Zhiyu Fan, Charlotte Breakwell, Naiqi Meng, Yanlin Wang, Fabrizia Foglia, Daryl Williams, Nilay Shah, Tongwen Xu, Neil McKeown, Magdalena Titirici, Kim Jelfs, Qilei Song*. Microporous ion-sieving membranes for sustainable lithium extraction. Nature Water, under revision.
, , Mixed cation transport behaviours in electrodialysis during simultaneous ammonium enrichment and wastewater desalination. Desalination, 2023, 545, 116155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2022.116155
Shuangchen Ma, Chang Liu, Yongyi Xu, Yu Tan, Dingchang Yang, Feng Wang, Lan Ma. Tio2 and carbon nanotubes composites modify capacitive deionization anodes to improve the dechlorination efficiency in desulfurization wastewater. Water Science & Technology (2021) 84 (5): 1228–1244. https://doi.org/10.2166/wst.2021.315
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