Recently, SUSTech Chair Professor Wang Haijiang was selected as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. As a faculty member of the Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Professor Wang was an expert panel member of the “Major Project for New Energy Automobiles” during China’s 13th Five-Year Plan.
Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering is an honorary title given to the country’s most accomplished engineers by the Canadian Government. Fellows of the Academy are nominated and elected by their peers, because of their distinguished achievements and career-long service to the engineering profession. As valuable think tanks, they provide expert advice to the initiation, evaluation and analysis of national projects. The Academy of Engineering is an active member of the International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences and one of the three members of Council of Canada Academies.
Wang Haijiang’s research areas are electrochemical energy and fuel cells, including fuel cell stacks, fuel cell power systems, and key parts and materials of fuel cells. From 1993 to 1996, he conducted postdoctoral research at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of Utah State University. In 1997, he became a research scientist at the Western Research Center of Natural Resources Canada, and started researching and developing fuel cells. After two years, he took up the position of Senior Research Scientist at Ballard Power Systems in British Columbia. He focused his studies on gas diffusion layer and membrane electrode, which are the key components of fuel cells. During his five-year stay there, Wang registered two patents (low-cost rolled gas diffusion layer and membrane electrode assembly production process) which remain key technologies of the company. In 2004, he joined Canada’s National Research Council and was quickly promoted from Senior Research Officer to Principal Research Officer. He was also the project manager and team leader for the council, as well as a visiting professor of the University of British Columbia and University of Waterloo.
A decade flew by, and Professor Wang was already regarded as an outstanding expert to serve Canada in matters of engineering concern and protect the country’s interests. However, with a Chinese Dream in heart, Wang resigned from the National Research Council of Canada in 2015 and returned to his home country. With the help from long-time colleague Professor Li Hui, Shenzhen Technological Innovation Committee and SUSTech, Wang opened a startup business called Shenzhen SouthernTech Fuel Cell Corp. Ltd. The main business of the company includes research and development of fuel cell stacks, and bulk-production of bipolar plate and membrane electrode assembly. With a fuel cell research team of over 150 people, Shenzhen SouthernTech Fuel Cell has already developed world-leading 30kW stack products and an advanced production line of roll-to-roll membrane electrode assembly.
Since his appointment at SUSTech, Professor Wang Haijiang has already led many approved scientific projects at the municipal and provincial levels, such as the laboratory for automobile fuel cell engineering. In December last year, Professor Wang started the Shenzhen Hydrogen Energy and Fuel Cell Association, which aims to integrate resources in Shenzhen’s hydrogen energy and fuel cell industry, and organize expert and standard-setting committees. As the Association’s Vice President, he is leading the association to build the Baolong Avenue Hydrogen Energy and Fuel Cell Industrial Base.
Throughout his two decades of research on fuel cells, Wang Haijiang has published 180 academic papers, 15 monographs, and registered five international patents. His h-index is 54, while SCI cite times is over 17,000. As a result, he appeared on the Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researchers List for four consecutive years (from 2014 to 2017).
In addition, Professor Wang’s failure analysis methods and dignostic tools for fuel cell life have helped the fuel cell industry so much that it can now overcome key obstacles and head towards industrialization. He was therefore commonly considered the expert of fuel cell diagnosis.
