Microfluidics-Enabled Soft Manufacture

This book covers state-of-the-art development in microfluidics-enabled soft manufacturing (MESM), ranging from fundamentals to applications. The book addresses the long-standing challenge in the manufacture of simultaneously achieving both precise control over nano-/micro-scale structures and large-scale fabrication of materials for pragmatic use, with microfluidics-enabled soft manufacture to fill the gap between the widely-varied length scales involved. It offers a comprehensive insight into the microfluidic generation of fluid systems as liquid templates, such as droplets, bubbles, jets, emulsions, and foams, which are categorized into individual templates, one-dimensional arrays, and two-/three-dimensional assemblies for the modular fabrication of microparticles, microfibers, and porous materials, respectively. MESM enriches the compositional and structural diversity of engineered materials for well-tailored properties and functionalities, markedly broadening the application horizons across interdisciplinary fields, including engineering, environment, physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. This book aims to systematize this emerging yet versatile and powerful technology, with the hope of aiding the realization of its full potential.

Microfluidics-Enabled Soft Manufacture will be an invaluable reference for graduate students, postgraduates, researchers, and practitioners/professionals working in micro and nanofabrication, materials science, surface science, fluid dynamics, and engineering. 

Dr. Pingan Zhu received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) in 2017 and a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2013. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the City University of Hong Kong. His research interests include microfluidics, fluid dynamics, surface wettability, micro/nanorobots, and biomimetics. Dr. Zhu has developed a versatile microfluidic platform for engineering fluid templates into solid materials with tailored properties and interdisciplinary applications, which has been widely featured by local, national, and international media. He has published more than 30 papers in prestigious journals including Science, Nature Communications, Advanced Materials, and Chemical Reviews. His work has been recognized by a number of awards, such as the 2018 TechConnect Global Innovation Award, the honorable mention of the 2017Hong Kong Young Scientist Award, and the 2016-2017 HKU Mechanical Engineering Outstanding Thesis Award. 

Prof. Liqiu Wang received his Ph.D. from the University of Alberta, Canada, and is currently a chair professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Biomedical Engineering Programme at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). He also serves as the Director and the Chief Scientist for the Laboratory for Nanofluids and Thermal Engineering at the Zhejiang Institute of Research and Innovation (HKU-ZIRI), the University of Hong Kong. Prof. Wang has 25 years of HKU experience in transport phenomena, materials, nanotechnology, biotechnology, energy and environment, thermal and power engineering, and mathematics, and ~2 years of industry experience in technology and IP development, management, and transfer as a Chief Scientist and Global CTO. In addition to 11 scholarly monographs/books, five book chapters, 78 keynote lectures at international conferences, and over 170 invited lectures in universities/industries/organizations, Prof. Wang has published over 250 papers in various prestigious journals including Chemical Reviews, Science, Nature Nanotechnology, Materials Today, Advanced Materials, Physics Reports, Nature Communications, Science Advances, PNAS, and Physical Review Letters, many of which have been widely used by researchers all over the world. Prof. Wang has also filed 38 patents and software copyrights, and developed, with an international team consisting of about 100 scientists and engineers, a state-of-the-art thermal control system for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) on the International Space Station that ensures AMS and all its sub-detectors working at their designed temperatures ± 1 ℃ for an environment temperature variation from -40 ℃ to 60 ℃ every 90 minutes. His work has been widely featured by local, national, and international media, journals, and magazines, and received recognition through a number of awards, including the 2021 Gold Medal of International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva, the 2018 TechConnect Global Innovation Award, the 2018 Silver Medal of International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva, the 2017 OSA Innovation Award, and the 2016 First Outstanding Achievement Award of Hangzhou Oversea Scholars, among others.