Webinar title: Environmental Behavior and Applications of Nanomaterials

Speaker: Professor Peng Zhang

Webinar time: 13:30pm, June 7, 2023 (Wednesday)

Venue: Room 208, New Environmental Building, Tencent Meeting 183866503

Inviter: Professor Hao Qiu

Abstract:

The study of the environmental behavior and risks of artificial nanomaterials is an important prerequisite for the sustainable development of nanotechnology and the protection of ecological and environmental health. Due to their small size effects, nanomaterials have high reactivity and can undergo physical, chemical, and biological transformations after entering the environment, which can alter their inherent physicochemical properties and determine their biological effects. Therefore, understanding the environmental and biological transformation processes of nanomaterials is a prerequisite for a thorough analysis of their biological effects. In addition, the agricultural applications of nanomaterials, particularly nano-fertilizers and nano-pesticides, have received increasing attention in recent years, and the efficiency of these new agricultural chemicals is also influenced by their environmental and biological processes. This report will provide a brief introduction to the environmental behavior of nanomaterials and their impact on agricultural applications.

About the speaker:

Peng Zhang, professor of the University of Science and Technology of China, doctoral supervisor. His research focuses on environmental behavior and toxicity of pollutants, as well as the environmental and agricultural applications of nanomaterials. He obtained his PhD from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and has held positions as an assistant and associate researcher at the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a senior researcher at the Department of Earth, Geography and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham in the UK, and a guest professor at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies in Germany. He has received numerous awards, including the 2022 James J Morgan Award from the American Chemical Society and the second prize of the excellent paper award from the Chinese Nuclear Society. He has also been selected for the National Overseas High-Level Talent Youth Program and the Chinese Academy of Sciences Hundred Talent Program. He has published over 100 papers in journals such as Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Plants, Nature Protocols, PNAS, ES&T, etc. and serves as an associate editor of Frontiers in Toxicology and editorial board member for six journals, including The Innovation and Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. He is also a reviewer for the Newton Fund in the UK and a formal member of the American Society of Toxicology.