During the cooperation with Prof. Shu Yang from University of Pennsylvania (USA), Assoc. Prof. Lili Yang from School of Transportation Science and Engineering has recently published their novel studies in Chemistry of Materials titled by “In situ synthesis of hybrid aerogels from single-walled carbon nanotubes and polyaniline nanoribbons as free-standing, flexible energy storage”. In this paper, they showed a flexible, free-standing and excellent electrode of SWCNT/PANI nanoribbon hybrid aerogels using SWCNT physical hydrogel as a support for in situ growth of PANI nanoribbons. Great interest has been received by some scientists and editors, and this paper has been listed as highly downloaded paper-3 of all articles in Chemistry of Materials. This work has partly supported by the China Scholarship Council and National Natural Science Foundation of China.

The SWCNT/PANI nanoribbon hybrid aerogels possess bicontinuous, interpenetrating networks, which are favorable for the efficient ion/electron transport and fast penetration of electrolyte ions provided by the interconnected nanopores. This research offers new insights to improve the performance of energy storage materials, but also provides high performance flexible electrodes for road sensor systems, wearable electronic devices, biomedical devices, etc.

Dr. Lili Yang received her Ph.D. degree in Materials Science and Engineering in 2009 from our university and joined School of Transportation Science and Engineering in April, 2010. She became an associate professor in 2012 and a Ph.D. adviser this April. During last four years, she was devoted to the studies of novel functional materials and microstructures for the applications in transportations such as roads, vehicles and transportation signs. There were 20 SCI papers published with the total impact factor of 41.5. Moreover, during the cooperation with Prof. Shu Yang, Assoc. Prof. Lili Yang also did some research about transparent superhydrophobic coatings for the enhancement of concrete frost-resistence and anti-ice performance and warning materials based on optical biomimetic structures. Until now three papers have been published in Particle & Particle Systems Characterization、Chemical Communications、Journal of Materials Chemistry, respectively.