On 9th
Sep, we had a guest from National Taiwan University - Prof. Da-Ming
Wang. He is a professor of the Department of Chemical Engineering,
National Taiwan University, Taiwan. He is also a member of the R&D Center
for Membrane Technology in Chung Yuan University, Taiwan and currently a
visiting professor of the Center for Membrane and Film Technology in Kobe
University, Japan. His main research interests include fabrication of
polymeric membranes, membrane separation techniques, and biomaterials. He also
serves as one of the editors of the Journal of Chemical Engineering of Japan
and an editorial board member of the Journal of Taiwanese Institute of Chemical
Engineers.
He
presented an interesting topic about the mass transport during membrane
formation. His research group has developed a method by using the
FTIR microscopy to investigate the change in concentrations of polymer,
solvent, and nonsolvent in the casting solution during membrane formation.
Then, the composition path on the ternary phase diagram of polymer, solvent,
and nonsolvent can be constructed. With the technique, they were able to obtain
information such as the time that the solution composition in a position of the
cast film needed to reach the phase separation region, what the solution
composition was as phase separation occurred, and the time the solution stayed
in the metastable region (in between binodal and spinodal).
