Dr. Cao will start his postdoctoral research in the groups of Profs. Michael Urbakh and Oded Hod at the School of Chemistry, Tel Aviv University, in October 2019. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Nanjing Tech University (China) in 2016. His doctoral work focused on molecular transport of nanofluids through membranes. Wei then moved to the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, China, and extended his research in the field of nanofluidics and nanotribology as a postdoc.

 

His research interest is to understand the molecular mechanisms at solid–liquid and solid–solid interfaces, mainly using computer-aided methods, such as molecular dynamics simulation, and ab initio methods. His work is expected to guide the applications of advanced materials in membrane separations and mechanical devices. Recently he has been working on the diffusion of nanofluids in wiggling nanopores and the coupling between water movement and phonons in solid surfaces. Wei’s postdoctoral research will focus on the energy dissipation between layered structures by theoretical and numerical methods, with the general goal of developing a theoretical framework to understand the friction behavior between layered structures.