Prof. Chuyang TANG

Award Citation

Chuyang Tang is a world leader in membrane technology, desalination, and water reuse. He has made critical contributions to the better understanding of the nanoscale structures of desalination membranes and their transport behaviors. Professor Tang is the lead inventor of aquaporin-based biomimetic membranes. For the first time, he demonstrated a scalable biomimetic desalination membrane that incorporates aquaporins (water channel proteins) for highly efficient water transport while maintaining excellent selectivity. This new-generation membrane technology, widely recognized in the desalination field, that has been commercialized in Singapore, Denmark, and China. Professor Tang developed the pioneer work on interfacial nanofoaming for controlling the surface roughness and morphology of polyamide reverse osmosis membranes. For the first time, he elucidated the fundamental mechanism of interfacial degassing that shapes the surface roughness features, thus solving the 40-year puzzle for membrane researchers. His nanofoaming method is highly effective to overcome the longstanding permeability-selectivity tradeoff of reverse osmosis and nanofiltration membranes. His work on designing membranes to directly target micropollutant removal bridges a critical literature gap between membrane synthesis and water reuse applications and has been featured in Chemical Engineering News as an agenda-setting work for the future development of membranes for water reuse. Professor Tang has published more than 260 refereed journal papers, with a total citation of 15,979 and H-index of 71 according to the Web of Science. He has delivered over 70 invited, keynote, and plenary talks. Professor Tang is a recipient of the Finland Distinguished Professor Program Fellowship Award (2010 – 2015), International Desalination Association Fellowship Award (2010), and Singapore Ministry for National Development R&D Merit Award (2013). He is an inventor of 15 patents. He and his research team won numerous medals and awards for their inventions on membranes and filter products.