Dr. Kwun Nam Hui

Institute of Applied Physics and Materials Engineering

University of Macau

Introduction of Dr. Kwun Nam HUI

Dr. Kwun Nam Hui is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Applied Physics and Materials Engineering, University of Macau, Macau SAR, China. Prior to this, he was Associate Professor at Pusan National University, Republic of Korea. His current research focuses on synthesis of hierarchical carbon/graphene materials as well as on development of 3D hierarchical layered double hydroxide materials as advanced electrode materials for energy storage and conversion applications. He published more than 110 journal articles with a citation of over 2000 times and an h-index of 29. He has managed 15 research projects with a total research grant of MOP 11 million. His research has led to one US patent, eleven Korea patents, one China patent, five review papers, and three book chapters.

Topic: Nanostructured Metal Oxide Materials for Energy Storage

Abstract:

With the rapid development of electronic technology, wearable and flexible devices such as roll-up displays, biomedical sensors, and wearable devices, have drawn considerable attention. Developing high energy density flexible supercapacitors (FSCs) hold the promise to provide a safe, fast charge/discharge rate, and long-life flexible energy storage devices. To date, electrodes of high-performance FSCs are mainly composed of carbonaceous materials such as carbon nanotube (CNT), graphene and CNT/graphene hybrid due to their distinct properties of high conductivity and mechanical flexibility. However, the CNT/graphene-based electric double-layer capacitor possesses low specific capacitance due to its intrinsic double-layer charge storage mechanism, which relies on the electrostatic attraction of electrolyte ions and charges at the electrode surface. Accordingly, hybridizing pseudocapacitive metal oxide materials with carbon-based materials such as CNT and graphene has become an appealing strategy in increasing the specific capacitance and energy density of film electrodes. In this talk, the speaker will present his recent work in the development and application of nanostructured metal oxide electrode for high-performance flexible supercapacitors. Several strategies, including the morphology control, core/shell architecture, and defect engineering, will be discussed to improve the electron transports, electrolyte ions diffusion kinetics, and electrical conductivity of metal oxide electrodes.

Dr. Yoshiro Miyata

School of Engineering

Chukyo University

Mr. Alex Tat Hing Ho

School of Design

Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Topic: Reviving the engineers in our genes

Abstract

It can be said that the history of mankind is the history of engineering.  Archaeology tells us that Homo habilis, the oldest known human species who had the ability to create and use tools more than 2 million years ago also developed a brain double the size of its predecessor who had started walking on two legs another million years before.  Evolutionary Psychology also tells us that engineering started when evolution shaped what we call the engineering mind in our ancestors.  Urge theory of Toda (1981) postulated that human emotions evolved to survive in natural environments in which our ancestors lived during most of the human history.  An urge is a set of emotion and action that, upon encountering a certain type of situations, ‘urges’ us to do certain actions that optimize our chance of survival in those situations.   Let us examine two types of urges that are relevant for the history of engineering.

Learning urges: emotions like curiosity and challenge which were essential for learning the skills and knowledge necessary to make and use tools.

Social urges: helping urge giving the motivation to help others in need or contribution urge to do something useful for the community.

These urges were the driving force behind the ancient engineering, inventing and improving many useful tools.  These mental functions were adaptations to the natural environments in which our nomadic ancestors survived by hunting and gathering for millions of years.  However, the engineering driven by these urges has, by making new kinds of tools, changed the very environments in which they had evolved to function. Some groups of homo sapiens started to engineer the environments when they invented agriculture about several hundred thousand years ago which then spread to most other groups.  Farming forced them to shift from the nomadic lives with simple tools to settled lives with larger and more complicated tools, creating houses, storages, villages, and weapons to protect them.  Then only about a few hundred years ago, less than 0.1% of the human history, engineers invented machines that used fossil energies which led to the industrial revolution, changing our environments drastically and fundamentally.

When our environments change so rapidly, there is no time for our genes to properly adapt to them, and these urges no longer function properly in our modern environments.  For example, learning urges like curiosity and challenge seem to work well in young children when they play with natural objects or simple toys, but as they grow older and the tools and toys they use become more and more complicated, it becomes more difficult to feel curious about their mechanisms or feel challenged to make the toys/tools themselves.  Social urges like help urge or contribute urge are difficult to function in modern environments because the natural and human resources that support our daily lives have become invisible. Thus, more and more people buy and consume things that are produced by people they never meet using resources they never see, and those who produce things in factories never meet the users, and never know where the materials and energies they use are from.  Humans have created environments in which most people are caught in what Ivan Illich (1973) called "radical monopoly" in which they have to rely on huge systems that supply them foods, energy, health, and everything they need to survive in exchange of money, which they must earn by keep working, rather than working together to help each other live. This ignorance of the production processes has caused many global issues, such as environmental destruction, inequality, and exploitation of poorer communities.

The history of engineering is so ironical: the engineering mind that was supposed to function in natural environments actually have created environments that it cannot function well, thus making it more difficult to do engineering with proper motivations and producing solutions that can address more sustainable benefits rather than short-term gains. What can engineering do to fix this situation?

In our keynote presentation, we propose some directions for revising the engineer design process to try to answer this question. This new process introduces stages including stakeholders identification and evaluation, experience and roleplaying workshops as well as participatory design practice. With these new stages, we hope the learning urges and social urges in our engineering minds could be revitalized, while the objectives and engineering solutions could also be realigned to help yieldingsustainable benefits. As a result, it may help us to escape from this vicious cycle.

References:

Illich, I. (1973). Tools for conviviality. Marion Boyars.

Toda, M. (1981). Man, robot, and society: Models and speculations. Dordrecht, The Netherland: Kluwer Academic Publishers Group.