News & Gallery

Lab News

May 2024

Xun’s work on colloidal activated carbon transport is published in ES&T. Congratulations!

April 2024
Dr. Kai Loon Chen from DC Water visited GW and gave a seminar “Drinking Water Research in DC Water: From Lead Service Line Replacements to Water Quality Monitoring in Distribution System”.

April 2024
Congratulations to Dr. Kong! Lingchen successfully passed the defense for his Ph.D. dissertation “Selective Ion Separation in Electrochemical Systems for Water Purification and Lithium Extraction”. Lingchen will embark on a new journey of commercializing direct lithium extraction technology.

April 2024
Our technology “Chemical-Free Extraction of Lithium from Brines” has won the 1st place prize in the GW TCO Innovation Competition & NAI GW Chapter Induction Ceremony. See the GWToday report here.

April 2024

Kejia has been selected as a 2024 Ellen Gonter Graduate Student Research Paper Awardee.  This is the highest award given to students by the Division of Environmental Chemistry. She will present her work in the ACS Fall meeting. See the GW Engineering report. Congrats, Kejia!

March 2024

Our collaborative work on the interaction of coronavirus with contact surfaces in collaboration with Prof. Yun Shen has been published in Environment & Health. Congratulations, Yarong and all!

January 2024

Zhaoyang Wang joined our lab as a new Ph.D. student. Welcome, Zhaoyang!

December 2023

Our DOE geothermal lithium extraction prize was highlighted in GW Today.

November 2023
Dr. Liu presented Kejia’s work in an invited talk entitled “Techno-economic assessment of brackish water electrochemical desalination with intercalative electrodes” at the 5th International Water Association Resource Recovery Conference in Shenzhen, China.

October 2023

Bridget and Yongchang passed their DQE exams. Congratulations!

October 2023
Dr. Liu presented Lingchen and Kejia’s work in an invited talk entitled “Electrochemical Deionization for Water Desalination and Direct Lithium Extraction” in the “Electrochemical Separations and Sustainability” Symposium at the 244th Electrochemical Society Meeting in Gothenburg, Sweden.

September 2023

Our reviewer paper on electrochemical desalination in collaboration with Prof. Pei Dong group at George Mason has been accepted for publication in Chemical Communications. Congratulations, Yongchang and Lingchen!

September 2023
Our team Ellexco has been selected as one of the winners of the Geothermal Lithium Extraction competition organized by the Department of Energy, congratulations! See DOE Announcement and GW Hatchet Article. Many thanks to our collaborator Prof. Chong Liu (UChicago) and industrial advisors.

Lingchen has been leading the project efforts; Kejia, Yongchang, and Bridget also contributed a lot to the project Excellent work everyone!

September 2023

Samarpan Deb Majumder joined our lab as a new Ph.D. student. Welcome, Sam!

July 2023

Kejia received the student travel award from the Chemical Society of Washington (CSW). She will present her research at the ACS Fall meeting. Congratulations, Kejia!

June 2023
Xun and Lingchen attended the AEESP conference at Northeastern University, and presented their research.

June 2023
We received funding support from the Office of Naval Research to study the performance of intercalation electrodes in the desalination of brackish water.

May 2023

Prof. Liu gave an invited talk at the 2nd Greater Bay Area Symposium on Separation and Purification Technology Conference.

May 2023

Lingchen passed his Ph.D. proposal defense. Congrats!

April 2023
Our review paper with Prof. Tiezheng Tong and Prof. Tianshu Li on the coupling of organic fouling and inorganic fouling in membrane desalination is published in ES&T (Link). Bridget is a co-author of the paper. Congratulations!

April 2023

Prof. Liu delivered an invited seminar on “Electrochemical deionization for water desalination and selective ion separation” in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Clarkson University.

April 2023
Chenwei and Li have passed their M.S. Thesis defense, congratulations!

April 2023
Lingchen led our Ellexco team and won the 1st Prize in Business Goods and Services Track and the CirrusLabs Prize for Best Tech Venture in the GW New Venture Competition! Check out the GW Today coverage here.

March 2023
We received an award from the GW TCO office to support our research on direct lithium extraction. Our project is highlighted by GW Today.

March 2023
Our team has advanced to the Finals of the GW New Venture Competition! Check out the news here.

January 2023
Lingchen won the first place in USA-DC region, Global Student Entrepreneur Award (GSEA) Competition. Congrats!

November 2022
Lingchen and Dr. Liu participated in the Pitch George Competition hosted by GW Center for Entrepreneurial Excellence, and won the 1st prize in the Tech Venture Track.  Read the GW Today report here.  Great job, Lingchen!

September 2022
Dr. Liu’s 2021 paper on the cost comparison between CDI and RO received the ACS ES&T Engineering 2021 Best Paper Award.  Thanks to all the collaborators!

August 2022
Lingchen attended the 2022 ACS Fall meeting in Chicago.  He presented his work on selective lithium extraction from water. Excellent job, Lingchen!

July 2022
Bridget and Xun attended the 96th ACS Colloid and Surface Science Symposium at the Colorado School of Mines.  This is their first conference since joining our lab.  They both gave talks and presented their research.  Great job!

July 2022
Congratulations to our team “Ellexco” led by Lingchen and Prof. Liu as one of the five teams that advance to the final phase of the Geothermal Lithium Extraction Prize Competition hosted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory!  We will collaborate with Prof. Chong Liu (UChicago) to advance direct lithium extraction technologies.  Check out the news here and the DOE announcement.

June 2022
Lingchen and Prof. Liu attended the AEESP 2022 Conference at Washington University in St. Louis, and presented our recent work on selective ion separation using ion-exchange membranes.  Prof. Liu also chaired two sessions “Physical and Chemical Treatment Processes” and “Membranes and Surfaces”.

April 2022
Xun and Lingchen participated in the 2022 GW School of Engineering & Applied Science R&D showcase. They presented their research work on groundwater remediation and selective nitrate removal. This is a great way of celebrating Earth Day 2022!

March 2022
Our research project wins the KU-GWU research collaboration award. We will collaborate with Prof. ‪Hyejeong Kim at Korea University to develop more efficient methods to extract critical materials from water streams.

April 2021
Yarong presented her work at the American Chemical Society Spring 2021 meeting: ” Role of organic foulants on the kinetics of silica scaling: Behavior and mechanisms”.  Great job, Yarong!

January 2020
Prof. Xiaolei Wu from Peking University visited GWU. Our group participated in a workshop co-hosted by Prof. Danmeng Shuai, Prof. Yun Shen at UC Riverside, Prof. Guangbin Li at the University of Maryland, and Prof. Zhiwu Wang from Virginia Tech.  Prof. Liu gave a presentation on “Understanding nanoscale interfaces for environmental protection”.

Gallery

Group photo for Lingchen’s PhD graduation, April 2024
Group Dinner, December 2023
Group Picnic and Board Game, Beverly Triton Nature Park, September 2023
Beverly Triton Nature Park, September 2023
Group Photo, Fall 2022
Team outing at Rock Creek Park, Summer 2022
Group BBQ, Summer 2021
Group photo, Fall 2019
Science and Engineering Hall, Exterior
Science and Engineering Hall, Interior
Cherry Blossom, Tidal Basin, DC