HZB-postdoc Feng Liang becomes associate Professor at Xi'an Jiaotong University

Dr. Feng Liang has secured an associate professorship at the Green Hydrogen Innovation Center in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China. He will start to build up his research team in June 2025.

Dr. Feng Liang has secured an associate professorship at the Green Hydrogen Innovation Center in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China. He will start to build up his research team in June 2025. © HZB

Dr. Feng Liang has joined the HZB Institute Solar Fuels in 2021. Now, he has secured an associate professorship at the Green Hydrogen Innovation Center in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China. He will start to build up his research team in June 2025.

Dr. Feng Liang has earned a PhD in mechanical engineering from Xi'an Jiaotong University, China, in a joint training programme with RWTH Aachen. In October 2021, he joined the Institute Solar Fuels on a Helmholtz-Innovation Pool project. He is developing cutting-edge prototypes for water-splitting devices that can operate at higher than ambient pressures up to 8 bar.

The design of functioning prototypes demands skills from different disciplines, not only device engineering but as well a deep understanding of materials science and electrochemistry. “I learned most of the electrochemistry here from Fatwa Abdi and Roel van de Krol”, Liang says. “They were the best mentors I could ever imagine”.

Feng Liang has secured an associate professorship at the Department of Mechanical Engineering in Xi'an Jiaotong University. He will leave HZB after helping his colleagues prepare for the "programme oriented funding" evaluation in May.

“From June 2025, I will start my own group in China, and I'm excited about the prospect of a close partnership with HZB in the future”, he says. Liang will continue his work on prototypes for water splitting. Roel van de Krol, director of the Institute for Solar Fuels, praised Feng Liang's achievement, saying: “It's wonderful to see that his work at HZB has led to an associate professorship; it's a great example of how HZB provides a supportive environment for early-career researchers to develop their careers”.

 

arö

  • Copy link

You might also be interested in

  • Green hydrogen with PEC electrolysers: New insights into transport processes
    Science Highlight
    21.07.2026
    Green hydrogen with PEC electrolysers: New insights into transport processes
    One method of storing solar energy is to use PEC electrolysers to produce hydrogen. However, scaling up this technology remains challenging. Now, a team at the HZB Institute for Solar Fuels has used 2D fluorescence imaging and particle velocimetry to observe the movement of ions and dissolved gases within the electrolyte during electrolysis. These new insights may prove useful in the development of larger PEC electrolysers.
  • Accelerating through accelerator physics
    Blog
    21.07.2026
    Accelerating through accelerator physics
    When I applied to the International Summer Student Programme at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, I never thought that I would be diving into a whole new, and to me previously unknown, area of physics. Though I have had courses on related topics like mechanics and electromagnetism, accelerator physics also includes special relativity, optics and a whole lot of maths. All these areas of physics are combined in order to calculate, as precisely as possible, the movements of the particles inside the accelerator.
  • My first time working in a glovebox
    Blog
    20.07.2026
    My first time working in a glovebox
    Have you ever tried doing precise work while wearing oversized rubber gloves attached to a giant glass box? Neither had I, until today. My first experience working in a glovebox turned out to be one of the most memorable parts of the experiment.