On February 2, good news came from the HLHL (Ho Leung Ho Lee) Fund 2025 Awards Ceremony: Professor Xiao Changfa, leader of the Fiber New Materials Industry-Academia-Research Team at Shanghai University of Engineering Science (SUES), was awarded the HLHL Fund Science and Technology Innovation Award, marking a historic breakthrough for the university in receiving a prestigious award from the scientific community. This distinguished honor embodies Professor Xiao and his team's decades of unwavering dedication and innovative contributions to the field of fiber new materials.
Professor Xiao Changfa, leader of the Fiber New Materials Industry-Academia-Research Team, has long been dedicated to the innovation and industrialization of fiber materials and is one of the leading figures in China's hollow fiber membrane separation materials research. The team was selected as a Huang Danian-style Teacher Team in universities nationwide and has achieved a series of innovative results in chemical fiber formation theory and engineering applications, hollow fiber membrane manufacturing technology, and the development of functional fiber materials and textiles. The team has received numerous honors, including the Second Prize of the National Technological Invention Award, the Second Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award, the China Textile Academic Award, the China Patent Excellence Award, the Gold Prize at the Geneva International Invention Exhibition, and the Gold Prize at the National Invention Exhibition. Professor Xiao has published books such as Preparation Methods and Applications of Hollow Fiber Membranes, Applied Fundamentals of Membrane Separation Materials, Introduction to Chemical Fibers, and Fiber Composite Materials, published over 400 papers indexed by SCI/EI, and been granted more than 160 Chinese and international invention patents.
Breaking Technological Monopolies — Domestic Products Must Be the Very Best
In the 1980s, after studying in Japan on two occasions, Professor Xiao Changfa keenly felt the gap between China and the international community in key material fields such as high-performance fibers and separation membranes. He resolved to ensure that Chinese materials would no longer be subject to foreign control. Over forty years of tireless endeavor, he led his team to demonstrate that domestic does not mean a makeshift substitute but a declaration of strength that surpasses the original. The team built China's first integrated production line for fluoropolymer fully drawn composite filament fibers with an annual output of 100 tons, breaking foreign monopolies. They pioneered a thermal method for preparing fiber-reinforced polyethylene hollow fiber membranes, with the comprehensive performance of the membranes surpassing similar products both domestically and internationally. The Super Oleophilic-Hydrophobic Hollow Fiber Membranes and High-Efficiency Lubricating Oil Dehydration Equipment was appraised as internationally leading and was awarded 2025 Shandong Province's First Set of Major Technical Equipment. The Nano-Silver Hybrid Antimicrobial Textiles R&D and Industrialization achievement is at the international leading level in terms of in-situ self-assembly of nano-silver within fibers and the regulation technology of nano-silver with small particle size and narrow distribution. In the area of basic research and new variety development of fiber materials, multiple national key new products developed by the team have cumulatively treated over 10 million tons of various wastewater daily in numerous countries and regions at home and abroad, truly writing research papers on production lines that solve the country's chokehold problems.
Answering the Two Mountains Call — Guarding Rivers and Waters Through Scientific and Technological Innovation
Scientific and technological innovation should not only pursue world-class excellence but also take root on the ground. The team closely integrates scientific research with ecological civilization construction, addressing major national needs such as wastewater resourceification and environmental protection. They pioneered pressure-responsive hollow fiber membrane manufacturing technology, melt-spinning-stretching interfacial poration technology, and melt/solution integrated online composite spinning membrane fabrication technology, achieving a series of innovations in hollow fiber membrane manufacturing and vividly embodying the philosophy that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets. Addressing challenges such as oily wastewater, thin oil films on large water surfaces, and organic matter in the air, they invented fiber preparation technology with crosslinked structures, developed ultrafine oleophilic/hydrophobic fiber nonwoven materials, and pioneered fiber membrane materials suitable for continuous, high-efficiency emergency response (recovery) of thin oil films and oily hazardous chemicals on water surfaces, along with integrated equipment combining ships and unmanned surface vehicles. Production lines for filtration and adsorption industrial textiles have been established, and the series of products have been exported to more than 40 countries and regions worldwide, playing a significant role in water surface oil removal, emergency response to organic pollutants, air purification, and waste oil recycling.
Passing the Torch — Building a New Force of Innovation Through Collective Wisdom
The team has cultivated a spirit of building on accumulated knowledge, working diligently, daring to innovate, and being willing to contribute. Selected as a Huang Danian-style Teacher Team in universities nationwide, the team has nurtured outstanding talents including recipients of the National May Day Labor Medal and participants in the China Association for Science and Technology's Youth Talent Support Program. The Fiber Materials Research Center, where the team is based, has successively been approved as a Fluoropolymer Fiber Materials Research Base and a Key Laboratory of the Textile Industry for Fiber Membrane Preparation Technology and Applications. Three generations of researchers — veteran, mid-career, and young — have passed the torch from one to the next, completing or currently undertaking sub-topics of the National Key R&D Program, National Natural Science Foundation projects, Jiangsu Province Key R&D Program projects, Zhangjiagang City industry-academia-research projects, and cooperation projects with Sinopec and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, with multiple achievements achieving transformation and application.
From radiation-cooling fibers and their textiles to membrane-based water treatment and liquid sodium sulfate recovery key technologies for the printing and dyeing industry, and further to heat-resistant and solvent-resistant polyaramids and fully fluorinated polymer hollow fiber membrane development and applications, the team's pace of innovation has never ceased.
In the future, the team will continue to uphold the original aspiration of researching whatever the country needs and practice the mission of applying scientific and technological achievements to the great cause of modernization, making new and greater contributions to promoting high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and serving the national innovation-driven development strategy.
