News

Prof. Xiaoming TAO Attended the PolyU InnoTech Open Day and Gave a Talk at the Research & Innovation Breakout Sessions

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) held the PolyU InnoTech Open Day in 16 July 2022 to showcase the University’s latest endeavours in education, interdisciplinary research, knowledge transfer and entrepreneurship which were helping to empower the innovation and technology (I&T) development of Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area (GBA) and beyond. Prof. Xiaoming TAO, Director of RI-IWEAR, attended the Opening Ceremony also marked the inauguration of the PolyU Academy for Interdisciplinary Research (PAIR). PAIR is the largest research platform of its kind in Hong Kong and the GBA to foster interdisciplinary research, partnership with world-renowned scholars, and the transfer of technologies to stakeholders. Prof. Xiaoming TAO, Prof. Bingang XU, and Dr Tao HUA, as one of the 10 winning teams of the President’s Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Knowledge Transfer (KT), were also presented with the awards at the ceremony. The President’s Awards for Outstanding Achievement in KT recognises impactful projects demonstrated contributions in advancing technological or industry standards through application of PolyU’s research and innovations (for more information of the technology, please visit https://polyu.hk/vnLjb). In addition to the Opening Ceremony, a series of activities were held throughout the day, providing visitors with an excellent opportunity to learn more about PolyU’s contributions to I&T, as well as to explore academic, entrepreneurial and collaboration opportunities. The Research & Innovation breakout sessions featured novel and frontier topics related to life sciences, smart cities, neurohealth, future society, energy technology for carbon-neutrality, healthy food and lifestyle management, future manufacturing, artificial intelligence of things and intelligent wearable systems. These sessions served as a platform for industry practitioners and PolyU expert researchers to exchange views on technology innovation and development, collaboration, industry trends and applications. Prof. TAO gave a talk at the session of artificial intelligence of things and intelligent wearable systems. Please click here for more details. 

RI-IWEAR Members Obtained The President’s Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Knowledge Transfer 2021

Further to the invitation of nominations in February 2021 and the subsequent assessment processes for the captioned, Prof. Xiaoming TAO, director of RI-IWEAR, and Prof. Bingang XU and Dr Tao HUA, two of RI-IWEAR members’ research Yarn-spinning Technology Revolution: Nu-TorquTM have obtained The President’s Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Knowledge Transfer 2021: Industry. A total of five teams was awarded this prize.   Nu-Torque is a revolutionary yarn-spinning technology that uses physical means to create yarns with lower torque and twist while achieving the same strength as conventionally spun yarns. Fabrics made with Nu-Torque yarns are less prone to deformation even after repeatedly washed, while also feel softer, look shinier and with less hairiness. Compared with conventional yarn-spinning technology, Nu-Torque also improves productivity, saves energy and reduces pollutions. Fabrics and garments made with Nu-Torque yarns are widely sold in the U.S., Europe, Japan and China.   Congratulation to our colleagues for the work on knowledge transfer.

International Conference on Intelligent Wearable Systems 2022 held successfully

International Conference on Intelligent Wearable Systems 2022 (ICIWS 2022), a three-day conference, was successfully completed on Jun 29, 2022. The conference was organized by the Research Institute for Intelligent Wearable Systems (RI-IWEAR) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU).   The conference included four sessions: MATERIALS, DEVICES AND PROCESSING SENSORS, ACTUATORS AND BIOELECTRONICS ENERGY HARVESTING AND STORAGE SYSTEM INTEGRATION AND EMERGING APPLICATIONS   The conference invited 29 experts to share their experiences in the fundamental research and applications of flexible materials, sensors, energy devices, integration of wearable electronic systems and their applications. It attracted over 1778 people registered online for the conference, from 21 countries and regions, including China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Israel, US, Canada, UK, Germany, and Spain. etc. Among the registered participants, 85 came from companies, 53 from research institutes, and the rest from universities. The conference was also broadcasted simultaneously via a number of social media, including YouTube, Bilibili, Weibo, and WeChat. According to the statistics provided by social media, for the three days of the conference, a total of over 110,000 views were registered.

Intelligent wearable system with accurate detection of abnormal gait and timely cueing for mobility enhancement of people with Parkinson’s disease

The entire world, approximately ten million people have Parkinson’s disease (PD), which is the second most popular neurodegenerative disease. The most distinct symptoms of PD are movement ("motor") related. Previously reported wearable systems for people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) have been focused on the detection of abnormal gait. They suffered from limited accuracy, large latency, poor durability, comfort, and convenience for daily use. Herewith an intelligent wearable system (IWS) was interdisciplinary research by Prof. Xiaoming TAO and Prof. Margaret Mak, which can accurately detect abnormal gait in real-time and provide timely cueing for PD patients. The system features novel sensitive, comfortable and durable plantar pressure sensing insoles with a highly compressed data set, an accurate and fast gait algorithm, and wirelessly controlled timely sensory cueing devices. A total of 29 PD patients participated in the first phase without cueing for developing processes of the algorithm, which achieved an accuracy of over 97% for off-line detection of freezing of gait (FoG). In the second phase with cueing, the evaluation of the whole system was conducted with 16 PD subjects via trial and a questionnaire survey. This system demonstrated an accuracy of 94% for real-time detection of FoG and a mean latency of 0.37 s between the onset of FoG and cueing activation. In the questionnaire survey, 88% of the PD participants confirmed that this wearable system could effectively enhance walking, 81% thought that the system was comfortable and convenient, and 70% overcame the FoG. Therefore, the IWS makes it an effective, powerful, and convenient tool for enhancing the mobility of people with PD. The research was recently published in Wearable Technologies.

Prof. Zijian ZHENG Introduced a New Kind of Liquid-metal Fibre Mat at Now TV

Professor Zijian Zheng was interviewed by Now TV earlier, he introduced a new type of liquid-metal fibre mat developed by his team. The material is highly permeable and super elastic, which can be used for wearable electronic devices. Prof. Zheng expressed his hope in this research is to assist in athletes’ training and the medical field in the future.

RI-IWEAR Members Won Two Awards at TechConnect World Innovation 2022

Prof. Hong HU, Dr Dahua SHOU and Prof. Jintu FAN, members of Research Institute for Intelligent Wearable Systems (RI-IWEAR), won two prestigious global innovation awards in the areas of materials science and biotechnology at the TechConnect World Innovation Conference and Expo 2022 - the world’s largest multi-sector event for fostering the development and commercialisation of innovations.   The award-winning innovations include a new type of more environment-friendly moisture-absorbing and sweat-releasing fabric and an automatic temperature-controllable mask. Details are as follows: Moisture-Absorbing and Sweat-Releasing Multilayer Polylactic Acid Fabric and Manufacturing Technology (Prof. HU Hong, Institute of Textiles and Clothing) The new fabric stands out from existing moisture-absorbing fabric technology in that its fabrication technique is simpler, cheaper, and more environment-friendly. By employing double weft knitting technology, it only takes one single manufacturing process to produce the new fabric structure with improved moisture-absorbing and sweat-releasing properties. It also has inherent biological resistance and is ideal for use in school uniforms and sportswear. Omni-Cool-Breath: A Smart Air-Conditioned Mask (Dr SHOU Dahua, Professor FAN Jintu and Dr HUANG Guanghan, Institute of Textiles and Clothing) Omni-Cool-Breath is the first automatic temperature-controllable mask that brings revolutionary access to all-day cool breath and thermal comfort under various activities and thermal conditions. It reduces temperature by 12°C and humidity by 65% under low voltage via an innovative miniature thermoelectric cooling system. The ergonomically designed lightweight mask uses skin-friendly and biodegradable 3D printing materials that enable the user to enjoy nine hours of clean air.   For more information of the TechConnect 2022 Innovation Awardees, please visit the official website: https://www.techconnectworld.com/World2022/participate/innovation/awards.html

Professor Feng YAN’s Team Develops Ultrasensitive and Portable Detection Sensor for Rapid, Easy and Low-cost COVID-19 Antibody Test

Professor Feng YAN’s team has successfully developed an ultrasensitive and portable COVID-19 antibody detection sensor based on organic electrochemical transistor (OECT) technology. Fast and easy-to-use, the sensor is designed for testing the antibody levels of people who have either received vaccination or have been infected with the virus.   The whole detection process, which uses saliva sample instead of only blood, takes less than six minutes and the cost per test is only about HK$10. The antibody detection sensor can test the concentration of antibodies from lower than 10fM to higher than 100nM. The detection limit satisfies the needs of exquisite analytical sensitivity for saliva.   Professor YAN said that since the detection process is non-invasive, self-sampling is highly possible. Moreover, the operation and result reading are very simple with the use of a smartphone, and hence the sensor is suitable for instant detection and large-scale screening scenarios.   The next plan of the research team is to apply for funding for clinical studies in collaboration with different medical and testing institutions. They expect that the novel device can be commercialised as soon as practicable and applied for antibody detection of other viruses. 

Dr Ning LI Visited PolyU for Cooperation

Dr Ning LI, Chairman of Li-Ning Company Limited, visited PolyU on 5th May 2022 to seek further cooperation with PolyU. Li-Ning Company Limited is a famous Chinese sportswear and sports equipment company founded in 1989 by Ning LI, a former Chinese Olympic gymnast.   Professor Xiaoming TAO, Director of RI-IWEAR, Professor Jintu FAN, Professor Li LI, and Dr Tracy MOK, members of RI-IWEAR gave introductions on the research related to sportswear and health care for sportsmen, displayed the examples of the latest textile technology, and demonstrated the monitoring and rehabilitation technology for the sportsman, respectively.   Dr Ning LI detailed consulted on the relevant technical requirements and the possible development directions. The whole process of technology introduction and demonstration was broadcasted to the R & D team of Li-Ning Company Limited at the same time. This is communication for research and development knowledge transfer.

Chairman Ning LI, Founder of a Famous Chinese Sportswear and Sports Equipment Company, Visited PolyU

Dr Ning LI, Chairman of Li-Ning Company Limited, visited PolyU on 28th April 2022. Li-Ning Company Limited is a famous Chinese sportswear and sports equipment company founded in 1989 by Ning LI, a former Chinese Olympic gymnast. Professor Xiaoming TAO gave an introduction to the research and development knowledge transfer of the Research Institute for Intelligent Wearable Systems.

Scalable Production of Ultrafine Polyaniline Fibres for Wearable Electronics

High performance conducting polymer fibres are highly demanded in fields from advanced fibrous devices to frontier fabric electronics. Recently, a joint research team, led by Prof. Xiaoming TAO and Dr Yang CHAI, reported a scalable good solvent exchange strategy to produce ultrafine polyaniline (PAni) fibres. This work was published at Nature Communications. The first authors are Dr. Fang Bo and Mr. Jianmin Yan.   Processing conducting polymers into macroscopically fibrous materials makes it possible to translate their nano-object features to human-friendly products in a continuous manner. Primarily due to the large diameters, the performance and expectations of most achieved continuous conducting polymer fibres (CPFs) have been limited by their insufficient electroactive surfaces and weak tensile strength. Tao’s group report a good solvent exchange strategy in a modified wet spinning technique to prepare the ultrafine PAni fibres (UFPFs) at the large scale. Beyond conventional wet spinning protocol, they replaced poor solvents by good solvents as the coagulation bath to decrease the viscosity of gel protofibres, which were subject to an ultrahigh drawing ratio and reduced to an ultrafine morphology. In the modified one-step wet spinning process, they used good solvents as the coagulation bath to realize the mass production of UFPFs. A decreasing of diameter from ~0.1 mm to ~4.7 µm was observed, which is a record small value in the achieved wet-spun CPFs. The ultrafine fibre shows a smooth surface, highly crystallized microstructures, and uniform electrical properties. Moreover, such an impressive drawing ratio enables a very high production efficiency of UFPFs beyond 40 meters per minute.   UFPFs show impressive mechanical performance and energy storage abilities. UFPFs have a modulus of 29.89±5.6 GPa, and a strength of 1080±71 MPa, at least one order of magnitude higher than that of CPFs with larger diameters. They used polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-H3PO4 gel electrolyte and two UFPF electrodes to construct a micro capacitor to evaluate the electrochemical activity of UFPFs. The area capacitance is between 1008 and 1666 mF cm-2 at the current densities between 0.32 and 3.18 mA cm-2, outperforming previously reported thick CPFs and other electrodes, and approaching to that of PAni nanowires. Benefitting from the favorable energy and charge storage performance of UFPFs, they demonstrated a high-performance all-solid organic electrochemical transistor (OECT), which is very soft, and shows favorable amplification performance with a high on-off current ratio (103) at low voltages (