Dr. Deng is a member of TAPPI and AIChE, a Fellow of the International Academy of Wood Science, he received the AIChE Forest Bioproducts Division Chase Award and the IPST Presidents Research Award. Dr. Deng serves as an editing board member of 5 journals and an associate editor for 2 journals.

Election as Fellow recognizes “service to the profession” and “significant professional accomplishment,” according to the announcement. “Service to the profession” means efforts done for reasons other than financial compensation for AIChE, other technical societies, or other not-for-profit entities whose efforts benefit chemical engineers or the advancement of the engineering profession. “Significant professional accomplishments” shall be based on success in process, product, or theoretical developments, project leadership, managerial achievement, the educating of engineers, or other activities related to chemical engineering.

Dr. Deng’s research interests are renewable energy, nanomaterial synthesis and self-assembling, biofuel and biomass materials, colloid and interface science and engineering, polymer synthesis, and papermaking. Biofuel is another interested research area of Dr. Deng’s research group. Novel pretreatment of lignoncellulose for biofuel production was one of Dr. Deng’s research areas. Low temperature catalytic depolymerization of lignin for fuel applications has been an actively research area.

Biodegradable cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) and cellulose nanofibrils(CNF) are also interested in Dr. Deng’s research.  Shape-memory aerogels, aerogel microspheres, nanocellulose based soft electronics, gas and liquid barrier films have been discovered by Dr. Deng’s research group recently.

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