Guoliang Liu

Guoliang (Greg) Liu is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Virginia Tech's College of Science. His research focuses on transforming plastic waste into high-value chemicals and materials through innovative chemical processes. He leads the Liu Group, which has pioneered methods to upcycle polystyrene into benzene and polyolefins into surfactants. Key contributions include developing ultra-strong polymer-graphene membranes and hierarchically structured carbon fibers for energy storage and environmental applications.

Education:

• B.S. Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University, 2005
• Ph.D. Chemical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2011
• Postdoctoral Associate, Northwestern University, 2011–2014

Research Interests:

• Plastic Waste Upcycling
• Advanced Materials Design
• Nanoporous Carbon Fibers
• Energy-Efficient Membranes
• Industrial Sustainability

Notable Achievements:

• Developed scalable plastic-to-chemical conversion processes featured in Nature Sustainability and Science.
• Created graphene-polymer bilayer membranes with 10x energy efficiency gains in acoustic speakers.
• Pioneered block copolymer-derived carbon fibers for batteries, water treatment, and catalysis.

Awards:

• NSF CAREER Award (2018–2023)
• AFOSR Young Investigator Award (2017–2020)
• Virginia Tech Inventor of the Month (2017)
• Over a dozen early-career recognitions in materials and chemical engineering.

Grants & Collaborations:

• Lead PI on $800k NSF grant for plastic upcycling research.
• Industry partnerships for commercializing sustainable materials.
• Co-founded a startup to deploy plastic-to-chemical technologies.

Labs & Teams: The Liu Group operates a cross-disciplinary lab at Virginia Tech's Blacksburg campus, focusing on scalable chemical processes and advanced materials fabrication. Current projects include:

• Plastic-to-fuel conversion systems
• Nanoporous carbon fiber composites
• Graphene-enhanced acoustic devices