Time：June 12th, 2025. 15:00 ( China time )

Place：Room 318,  Shouxin Building

Bio：

Kai Zhang is currently Professor and Dept. Head of Dept. for Wood Technology and Wood-based Composites, Executive Director of Biotechnikum (Biotechnology Center), Faculty of Forest Sciences and Forest Ecology, and Member of Wöhler Research Institute for Sustainable Chemistry (WISCh), Faculty of Chemistry, University of Göttingen, Germany. He obtained Ph.D. at Dresden University of Technology, did postdoctoral training in Dresden University of Technology and the Pennsylvania State University, and worked as Junior Research Group Leader at Darmstadt University of Technology, before he joined University of Göttingen in 2015.

His research group works primarily on soft matters, mechanics, sustainable materials, self-assembly, sustainable chemistry, energy harvesting and storage etc., which span various length scales and can be used for versatile events.

Abstract：

Water is present in many soft matters in our daily lives, and affects their many properties, among others the morphology and mechanical properties. Either in hydrogel or in membranes/films of hydrophilic compounds, water will strongly affect these aspects of materials via alternative absorption and desorption steps. Hereby, own results about effects of water in soft matters will be presented and discussed, while these soft matters can be composed of different compounds, such as hydrophilic polymers or native nanostructures.