Basic research is like the long growth process of bamboo underground, and applied research is like the jointing growth of bamboo after breaking the soil, and the two are not opposites. The scientist's mission is also to quietly conquer the past few years in the ground, so as to provide stable support for the growth of bamboo after breaking the ground. ”
Wang Zuankai also warned his students not to be afraid of setbacks on the road of scientific research, which can enable us to achieve quantum leaps and achieve breakthroughs in innovative achievements.
"Answer the most beautiful scientific questions with minimal input."
This is what Wang Zuankai often says to his students. With this, we also firmly believe that on the road of innovation and development, Wang Zuankai will be able to create more scientific and technological achievements and write the most beautiful chapter for boosting new quality productivity.
Solve old problems with new ideas and innovate to interpret new quality productivity
——Associate Vice-President of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Chair Professor of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Wang Zuankai
Since 1756, the classical physical phenomenon "Leiden Frost effect" has become a major scientific problem in the field of engineering thermophysics for many years, until 2022, when this century-old physical effect was finally cracked by mainland scientists. However, the undergraduate and doctoral majors of the scientists who cracked the centuries-old physics were not engineering thermophysics.
He is the Associate Vice-President (Research and Innovation) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Kwok Group Professor of Bionic Engineering and the Chair Professor of the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
On May 30 this year, coinciding with the 8th "National Science and Technology Workers Day", Wang Zuankai was awarded the 2024 Nukiyama Memorial Award (awarded to one person every two years worldwide) in recognition of his significant contributions to the fields of engineering thermophysics and engineering science.
Not long ago, he was invited to attend the Tsingshan Science and Technology Award Ceremony initiated by the Meituan Tsingshan Science and Technology Foundation, and he became one of the nine winners of the first Tsingshan Science and Technology Award in 2021 for his interdisciplinary innovative research achievements in the field of low-carbon and green energy.
Breakthrough: Solve the century-old problem at the source
What is the "Leiden-Frost Effect"? Wang Zuankai interpreted the professional terms.
"Instead of immediately drying out, water and oil droplets sprinkled on a piping hot frying pan are suspended on a rapidly producing vapor film of their own – a phenomenon known as the Leidenfrost effect."
"At its source, Leidenfrost was first discovered by Hermann Burhav in 1732.
In 1756, the German physician Johann Leidenfrost made a more in-depth study and named it after him. Leidenfrost's phenomenon has a wide range of applications in many fields, but its occurrence has greatly reduced the heat transfer performance and become a major obstacle in the field of phase change heat transfer.
After 1756, many scientists carried out long-term explorations on how to suppress this phenomenon, but little progress was made", Wang Zuankai said about the cracking and utilization of this scientific phenomenon, with an incomparable sense of urgency and responsibility.
Breaking this physical effect is expected to give rise to a variety of cutting-edge applications related to phase change heat transfer, which will have a significant impact on the rapid development of high-tech technologies such as aerospace, nuclear technology, 5G, and quantum communication in mainland China. In particular, the efficient heat dissipation of extremely hot walls is no easy task to overcome.
Volunteer Affairs.
In 2016, Drai Wang and his team revealed the structural mechanism of local avoidance of the Leidenfrost effect through gradient structure surface design, which can improve the interfacial heat transfer efficiency by an order of magnitude. The results were published in the journal Nature Physics.
In 2022, he proposed the three-dimensional thermal heterogeneous surface design concept of "enhancing heat transfer through adiabatic", developed structural thermal armor materials, and for the first time, completely suppressed the Leiden Frost effect on a high-temperature surface of 1,000°C, achieving high-efficiency liquid cooling. The research results are expected to provide new ideas for the development of efficient water cooling technology for various application scenarios such as electronic equipment and nuclear power plants. ”
In 2023, he continued to work with the team of Cao Zhiyin at City University of Hong Kong to successfully develop a new type of biomimetic porous structure ceramic with high weather resistance and high mechanical properties, which can not only suppress the Leiden-Frost effect, but also achieve efficient light scattering and a near-perfect solar reflectance of 99.6%. This discovery has great potential for the development of sustainable, energy-efficient building solutions. The results were published in the journal Science.
For the breakthrough of this century-old physical effect, Wang Zuankai is grateful for the tempering of previous scientific research.
"In the past, when I was studying overseas, I was forced to move between two universities and three different laboratories in just one and a half years due to the slow progress of scientific research. A coincidental episode is that, according to the scientist's "academic family tree", I happen to be the 14th generation of academic inheritors of Mr. Hermann, the discoverer of the Frost effect in Leiden, which also allows us to form a closed loop in the development history of overcoming this century-old effect.
At the same time, the International Memorial Prize in Thermal Science was established to commemorate Professor Nukiyama, who made outstanding scientific contributions to the field of heat transfer, and in 1934 published a landmark study on boiling, which clarified the physical principles of boiling heat transfer by drawing a beautiful boiling curve.
This curve is known as the Nukiyama curve and appears in every heat transfer textbook. We can fundamentally suppress the Upper Leiden-Frost effect, so that we can correct the Nukiyama curve to a certain extent, and all of this is probably the most beautiful encounter. ”
Innovation: Inner exploration of the wonders of science
The century-old effect in the field of heat transfer is due to his long-term exploration in cutting-edge interdisciplinary fields, especially the understanding and utilization of water, the source of life. This is also a microcosm of his scientific research model - with the help of nature's wisdom, he has developed an efficient biomimetic interface control strategy to achieve efficient use of latent heat, kinetic energy and surface energy of liquids.
"Each of us is not like a small drop of water that falls on a lotus leaf, although it often breaks, but it will also bounce up resiliently." Wang Zuankai often encourages himself and his team with the spirit of water drops.
In 2014, through the research of the bionic lotus leaf surface, Wang Zuankai's team developed the most superhydrophobic material, which realized the longitudinal rapid separation of the liquid on the solid surface, and shortened the solid-liquid contact time by 80% compared with the original minimum theoretical limit, which has a wide range of application potential in the fields of energy harvesting, heat transfer, self-cleaning, drag reduction and anti-icing. The results were published in the journal Nature Physics and were selected as one of the 15 representative papers in the journal in the past 15 years.
In 2021, through the bionic Araucaria leaf structure, the 3D capillary sawtooth structure surface developed by Wang Zuankai's team revealed the mechanism of fluid autonomous direction selection, breaking the traditional perception that the spontaneous flow direction of the fluid formed since 1804 has nothing to do with its own properties, so that the fluid can be efficiently transported laterally on solid surfaces along different paths, against gravity and even over temperature gradients, which has laid a certain theoretical foundation for the development of research fields such as condensation heat transfer, anti-icing, microfluidics and interface drag reduction. The results were published in the journal Science.
In the cutting-edge application field, in 2020, Wang Zuankai's team invented a transistor-like generator, which can efficiently collect huge but often overlooked discrete water energy, such as rain, bubbles, etc., to realize that a drop of water can instantly light up 100 small LED bulbs, improving the original energy collection efficiency by 3 orders of magnitude.
The American Physical Society evaluated the invention as "an ingenious combination of triboelectric and hydrophobic effects that have a history of thousands of years", providing a new idea for the efficient collection of blue energy. The results were published in the journal Nature.
基于王钻开团队在仿生界面能源领域取得的系统性突破，2024年受邀在Nature综述类期刊Nature Reviews Electrical Engineering上撰写综述论文，回顾和总结该领域取得的最新研究进展，并展望未来发展方向。
In the past ten years, Wang has published 280 papers, of which more than 40 have been published in Nature and Science series journals, especially in the last four consecutive years as a corresponding author, and have been recognized by a series of important awards at home and abroad, including: BOCHK Science and Technology Innovation Award (2022), Tsingshan Science and Technology Award (2021), Xplorer Award (2020), etc.; Winner of the Falling Walls International Cross-Border Innovation Science Breakthrough Award (2023), the Croucher Senior Research Fellowship Award (2023), and the Gold Medal of Jury's Commendation at the International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva (2022); He was elected as a Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences (2023), a Fellow of the Hong Kong Young Academy of Sciences (founding member), and a Senior Research Fellow of the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong (2022).
Original intention: innovation interprets new quality productivity
"Scientific and technological innovation is the source of the formation of new quality productivity. The new quality of productive forces requires us to solve the most fundamental problems with new ideas, new methods, and new means. The development of new quality productive forces requires us scientific researchers to be patient, keep their original intentions, look at scientific research from a historical perspective, and further promote the progress of scientific research. "Wang Zuankai has a different view on new quality productivity.
At the 2024 Zhongguancun Forum Annual Conference "New Cornerstone Science Forum", Wang Zuankai pointed out the importance of basic research.
"Breakthroughs in basic research are crucial. It is precisely because of these breakthroughs in basic research that all kinds of black and hard technologies can be born. In the context of the current dual-carbon era, further deepening the basic and application exploration of advanced thermal functional materials and accelerating the industrialization of future science and technology will become the cornerstone of promoting the disruptive transformation of the new quality industry. Talking about the material science that the forum focused on, Wang Zuankai said with deep emotion.
Wang Zuankai said that engaging in scientific research is like the growth of bamboo.
"It took four years for the bamboo to grow 3 centimeters before it came out of the ground, and once it broke through the ground, it grew 30 centimeters a day. This is known as the 'Bamboo Law'.
Basic research is like the long growth process of bamboo underground, and applied research is like the jointing growth of bamboo after breaking the soil, and the two are not opposites. The scientist's mission is also to quietly conquer the past few years in the ground, so as to provide stable support for the growth of bamboo after breaking the ground. ”
Wang Zuankai also warned his students not to be afraid of setbacks on the road of scientific research, which can enable us to achieve quantum leaps and achieve breakthroughs in innovative achievements.
"Answer the most beautiful scientific questions with minimal input."
This is what Wang Zuankai often says to his students. With this, we also firmly believe that on the road of innovation and development, Wang Zuankai will be able to create more scientific and technological achievements and write the most beautiful chapter for boosting new quality productivity.
Editor in charge: Hu Yuchun
Simultaneous distribution of the official account of the Voice of China and the aggregation of the new media network of the voice of the Chinese news
![When He Xiangning fled to Hong Kong, the ship was forced to stop by bandits, and she calmed down: Do you know who I am[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)