Professor Wang Zuankai of City University of Hong Kong (CityU) is one of nine recipients to win the 2021 Green Tech Award organised by the Meituan Green Tech Fund for his innovative multidisciplinary research on low carbon cooling and nature-inspired engineering. The related research will have a profound impact on addressing the global carbon emission problem. This is another million-dollar prestigious award received by Professor Wang since he won the Xplorer Prize in 2020.

Professor Wang, concurrently Associate Dean (Internationalisation and Industry Engagement) in the College of Engineering and Chair Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, won in the category of low carbon transport and energy storage (multidisciplinary). One of his recent research projects on the development of a scalable thermal insulating cooler with thermal conductivity lower than that of air has shown effective passive daytime radiative cooling, with representative publications in ACS Nano, ACS Advanced Materials & Interfaces and the Journal of Materials Chemistry A.

CityU advocates “the integration of research and teaching”. Under the leadership of President Way Kuo, CityU has been proactively recruiting world-class scholars from around the world, which has contributed to the University ranking 7th among the world's top young universities, according to the Nature Index 2021 Young Universities.

Professor Wang is one of the CityU scholars recruited from a top overseas university from the US. Since joining CityU in 2009, he has published 19 papers in prestigious Nature/Science/PNAS series journals, including a recent Nature paper solving a 266-year-old scientific challenge in thermal cooling.

“I’m very grateful to the University community for their support and to my students for their hard work. This has enabled me to conduct the basic and applied research that I enjoy a lot. My gratitude also goes to Meituan, whose investment in green and sustainable technologies is visionary. It is always fulfilling to search for scientific beauty and practical value through continuous adventure. I hope this award can inspire more and more scholars to involve themselves in energy- and environment-related research,” Professor Wang said.

Titled “Superhydrophobic radiative cooling coatings for low-carbon cooling of vehicles”, his winning project aims at engineering the next generation of durable smart thermal regulation radiative cooling coatings. This project will help to improve weather resistance and adaption to extreme rain, snow and hot sun of vehicles; strengthen coating adhesion and expand the types of vehicles that can be assisted; and leverage thermal regulation to switch coating performance in hot and cold weather.

The Meituan Green Tech Fund is a public welfare fund initiated and established by Meituan. It aims to encourage more science scholars to devote themselves to environmental protection research, assist in the transformation of green and low-carbon basic scientific research and technological achievements, and promote the green development of industry. Each winner of the Green Tech Award will get a sum of RMB$1 million over the course of three years.