Mark Zhao
(Meng-Qiang Zhao)
Assistant Professor, Chemical & Materials Engineering
326 York Center (YORK)
About Me
Mengqiang (Mark) Zhao comes to NJIT from the University of Pennsylvania, where he is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. He develops methods to synthesize, characterize and process nanoscale materials for energy, electronic, and sensing applications, such as next-generation energy storage devices and portable diagnostic devices to detect diseases and toxic chemicals in the environment. While a Ph.D. candidate at Tsinghua University in Beijing, Zhao developed an advanced catalyst composed of metal nanoparticles and metal oxides that significantly improves the manufacturing production yield of carbon nanotubes. That technology has been licensed by a nanomanufacturing company and the carbon nanotubes it produces are used widely in the lithium-ion battery industry. Among other projects, he developed efficient methods for the large-scale synthesis and processing of two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides and carbides for use in energy storage and electronic biosensing. He has obtained nine patents and published more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals including Nature, Nature Energy, Advanced Materials, and ACS Nano, etc.
Education
Ph.D. ; Tsinghua University ; Chemical Engineering ; 2013

B.S. ; Tsinghua University ; Chemical Engineering ; 2008

2025 Fall Courses
MTEN 726 - INDEPENDENT STUDY II

MTEN 790A - DOCT DISSERTATION & RES

CHE 700B - MASTERS PROJECT

CHE 701B - MASTERS THESIS

MTEN 610 - FOUND OF MATERIALS SCI & ENGR

CHE 492 - RESEARCH & INDEP STUDY

CHE 491 - RESEARCH & INDEP STUDY

CHE 705 - INDEPENDENT STUDY I

CHE 706 - INDEPENDENT STUDY II

MTEN 491 - RESEARCH & INDEPENDENT STUDY I

MTEN 725 - INDEPENDENT STUDY I

MTEN 792 - PRE-DOCTORAL RESEARCH

CHE 790A - DOCT DISSERTATION & RES

CHE 792 - PRE-DOCTORAL RESEARCH

MTEN 492 - RESRCH AND INDPENDENT STUDY II

MTEN 700B - MASTER'S PROJECT

MTEN 701B - MASTERS THESIS

Teaching Interests
ChE 375 003– Structure, Properties and Processing of Materials
CHE 702 - Nanostructured Materials for Electrochemical Energy Storage Applications
Past Courses
CHE 375: STRUCTURE, PROPERTIES AND PROCESSING OF MATERIALS

CHE 702: SELECTED TOPICS IN CHEMICAL ENGINEERING II

CHE 791: GRADUATE SEMINAR

MTEN 201: INTRODUCTORY PRINCIPLES OF MATERIALS ENGINEERING

MTEN 610: FOUND OF MATERIALS SCI & ENGR

Research Interests
2D Materials: transition metal carbides and nitrides (MXenes), dichalcogenides (TMDs), oxides (TMOs), hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), and graphene;
1D Nanotubes and Nanofibers;
Heterostructures of 1D and 2D nanomaterials;
Polymer Nanocomposites;
Energy storage and conversion;
Electronics;
Biosensors

Join us:
We are actively looking for all strong candidates to join the lab. If you are interested, please directly contact Prof. Mengqiang Zhao: mz24@njit.edu
Conference Proceeding
"BarsoumMW and Gogotsi Y 2014 Proc"
.

Journal Article
Fangzhou Liu, Qingquan Ma, Md Mohidul Alam Sabuj, Shih-Hsiang Yen, Dheeban Govindan, Jianan Gao, Mengqiang Zhao, Menachem Elimelech, Wen Zhang. 2024. "Revolutionizing Airborne Virus Defense: Electromagnetic MXene-Coated Air Filtration for Superior Aerosol Viral Removal." ACS Applied Materials \& Interfaces .

Jianan Gao, Qingquan Ma, Yihan Zhang, Shan Xue, Joshua Young, Mark Zhao, Ziyong Jason Ren, Jae-hong Kim, Wen Zhang. "Coupling Curvature and Hydrophobicity: A Counterintuitive Strategy for Efficient Electroreduction of Nitrate into Ammonia, ." ACS Nano , vol. 18 , no. 14 , pp. 10302–10311.

Qingquan Ma, Jianan Gao, Kayla Cheng, Joshua Young, Mark Zhao, Avner Ronen, Wen Zhang. "Electrooxidation of Perfluorocarboxylic Acids by an Interfacially Engineered Magnéli Phase Titanium Oxide (Ti4O7) Electrode with MXene." ACS ES&T Engineering , vol. 4 , no. 5 , pp. 1102–1112.

Qingquan Ma, Jianan Gao, Botamina Moussa, Joshua Young, Mengqiang Zhao, Wen Zhang. 2023. "Electrosorption, desorption, and oxidation of perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCAs) via MXene-based electrocatalytic membranes." ACS Applied Materials \& Interfaces , vol. 15 , no. 24 , pp. 29149--29159.

Anis Chiout, Brochard-Richard, Cl\'eophanie, Laetitia Marty, Nedjma Bendiab, Mark Zhao, AT Charlie Johnson, Fabrice Oehler, Abdelkarim Ouerghi, Julien Chaste. 2023. "Extreme mechanical tunability in suspended MoS2 resonator controlled by Joule heating." npj 2D Materials and Applications , vol. 7 , no. 1 , pp. 20.

SHOW MORE
Chapter
Yu Xia, Tyler S Mathis, Mark Zhao, Babak Anasori, Alei Dang, Zehang Zhou, Hyesung Cho, Yury Gogotsi, Shu Yang. "Thickness-independent capacitance of vertically aligned liquid-crystalline MXenes." "MXenes," pp. 745--758. Jenny Stanford Publishing, 2023.

Olha Mashtalir, Maria R Lukatskaya, Mark Zhao, Michel W Barsoum, Yury Gogotsi. "Amine-assisted delamination of Nb2C MXene for Li-ion energy storage devices." "MXenes," pp. 401--414. Jenny Stanford Publishing, 2015.

Other
"Additives for suppressing dendritic growth in batteries"
December, 2020.