Dr Fang Xu

Dr Fang Xu (fang.xu@nottingham.ac.uk) is currently an assistant professor in Materials science, University of Nottingham, UK. She has obtained her Bachelor and Master degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern Polytechnical University, China in 2005 and 2008 respectively. She then graduated with her PhD in Materials Engineering from University of Exeter, UK. Her research has focused on two themes: 1. Creation and characterisation of novel nanostructures, 2. Functional nanocomposites towards advanced applications, with particular focus on thermal management and tribological applications. She has so far co-authored over 50 peer- reviewed international journal publications in composites arena, and established substantial expertise on the fabrication and characterisation of a wide range of nanocomposites and nanostructured materials. Dr. Xu has been guest editors for several journals including Nanomaterials and Chemo sensors. She has been intensively involved in projects funded by EPSRC, Innovate UK, clean sky, British Council etc.

Remarkable Enhancement of thermal and electrical properties for PEEK composite through a conducting network

A nanostructure of graphene oxide (GO) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) decorated with silver nanoparticles (AgGNT) has been prepared via a molecular-level-mixing (MLM) method followed by a subsequent freeze-drying and reduction process. The obtained well-dispersed AgGNT nanostructures were then applied as fillers to reinforce the poly(ether ether ketone) (PEEK) matrix. Owing to the unique morphology of AgGNT nanostructures, which made them uniformly dispersed in the PEEK matrix and formed a 3D network structure, the AgGNT-PEEK composites displayed much higher thermal conductivity and around 10 9 times better electrical conduction performance than pure PEEK, and superior thermal durability even above the melting temperature of pure PEEK. Thus, the AgGNT-PEEK composites have shown great potential for applications such as semiconductors, high-temperature electrical applications, aerospace, and automobile materials.