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Guoliang (Greg) Liu

Professor
Guoliang Liu
3107 Hahn Hall South

Research Interests

Each year, over 400 million metric tons of plastics are produced and used worldwide, yet less than 10% of these plastics is recycled or reused. The Liu Group is addressing this global plastic waste crisis by converting plastic waste into high-value chemicals and materials, creating strong financial incentives for plastic recyclers. This approach offers a range of benefits: 1) opening new opportunities for profitable plastic waste recycling, 2) reinforcing the chemical and materials supply chain by providing alternative feedstocks, and 3) fostering global sustainability and social responsibility. Importantly, we focus on low-cost, high-value, and industrially scalable chemical approaches.

The Liu Group has developed a range of innovative processes to upcycle plastic waste. We have pioneered the conversion of polystyrene waste into benzene, a platform chemical that can be further transformed into high-value products such as fragrances, pharmaceutical precursors, and cosmetic additives (Publications #3 and #4 below). Additionally, we have developed methods to convert mixed polyethylene and polypropylene into platform chemical alpha-olefins with controlled chain lengths. A key achievement of our research has been the upcycling of these waste-derived alpha-olefins into high-value surfactants used in household products (such as soaps and detergents) and industrial applications (like emulsifiers) (Publications #1 and #2 below). Notably, these high-value materials share similar market sizes of end-of-life plastic waste.

In broader areas of sustainable chemistry and engineering, the Liu group has developed one of the world’s thinnest and strongest polymer-graphene heterostructural membranes, capable of being tensioned across inch-diameter areas. These membranes have been used in electrostatic acoustic speakers, delivering over ten times the energy efficiency of conventional electrodynamic speakers. Additionally, we have created a new class of carbon fibers, derived from block copolymers, which offer exceptionally uniform mesoporous structures, along with hierarchical macropores and micropores. These block copolymer-derived porous carbon fibers are now used in a variety of applications, including energy storage (e.g., batteries and supercapacitors), water treatment (e.g., desalination and contaminant removal), gas separation, and electrochemical catalysis.

The research in the Liu group has received global recognition, featured by hundreds of news media including NPR, Fox News, ABC, BBC, The Guardian, the World Economic Forum, Irish National Radio, and New Zealand National Radio.

  1. Nuwayo Eric Munyaneza, Ruiyang Ji, Adrian DiMarco, Joel Miscall, Lisa Stanley, Rui Qiao,* Guoliang Liu,* “Chain-length-controllable upcycling of polyolefins to sulfate detergents”, Nature Sustainability, 2024, 7, 1681–1690. DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01464-x.
  2. Zhen Xu, Nuwayo Eric Munyaneza, Qikun Zhang, Mengqi Sun, Carlos Posada, Paul Venturo, Nicholas A. Rorrer, Joel Miscall, Bobby Sumpter*, Guoliang Liu*, “Chemical upcycling of polyethylene, polypropylene, and mixtures to high-value surfactants”, Science, 2023, 381, 666–671. DOI: 10.1126/science.adh0993
  3. Nuwayo Eric Munyaneza, Carlos Posada, Zhen Xu, Vincenzo De Altin Popiolek, Griffin Paddock, Charles McKee, Guoliang Liu*, “A Generic Platform for Upcycling Polystyrene to Aryl Ketones and Organosulfur Compounds”, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2023, e202307042. DOI: 10.1002/anie.202307042
  4. Zhen Xu, Fuping Pan, Mengqi Sun, Jianjun Xu, Nuwayo Eric Munyaneza, Zacary L. Croft, Gangshu (George) Cai, and Guoliang Liu*, “Cascade Degradation and Upcycling of Polystyrene Waste to High-Value Chemicals”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A., 2022, 119, 34, e2203346119.
  5. =Assad U. Khan, Gabriel Zeltzer,* Gavriel Speyer, Zacary L. Croft, Yichen Guo, Yehiel Nagar, Vlada Artel, Adi Levi, Chen Stern, Doron Naveh,* Guoliang Liu,* “Mutually Reinforced Polymer-Graphene Bilayer Membranes for Energy-Efficient Acoustic Transduction”, Advanced Materials, 2021, 2004053. DOI: 10.1002/adma.202004053.
  6. Tianyu Liu, Joel Marcos Serrano, Xiaozhou Yang, William Cathcart, Zixuan Wang, Zhen He, Guoliang Liu,* “Exceptional Capacitive Deionization Rate and Capacity by Block Copolymer-based Porous Carbon Fibers”, Science Advances, 2020, 6(4), eaaz0906. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaz0906.
  7.  Tianyu Liu, Zhengping Zhou, Yichen Guo, Dong Guo, Guoliang Liu,* “Block Copolymer Derived Uniform Mesopores Enable Ultrafast Electron and Ion Transport at High Mass Loadings”, Nature Communications, 2019, 10, 675. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-08644-w.
  8. Zhengping Zhou, Tianyu Liu, Assad U. Khan, Guoliang Liu,* “Block Copolymer Based Hierarchical Porous Carbon Fibers”, Science Advances, 2019, 5(2), eaau6852. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aau6852.
  • National Academy of Inventors, Senior Member (2025)
  • CAPA Distinguished Faculty Award (2024)
  • Commercialization Champions Award, Virginia Tech (2023)
  • Research and Innovation Excellence Recognition, Virginia Tech (2022)
  • John C. Schug Research Award (2020)
  • Molecular Systems Design & Engineering – Emerging Investigator (2020)
  • ACS Applied Polymer Materials – Emerging Investigator (2020)
  • Polymer Chemistry – Emerging Investigator (2020)
  • Blackwood Junior Faculty Fellow (2019-2025)
  • Journal of Materials Chemistry – Emerging Investigator (2019)
  • Macromolecular Rapid Communications – Young Talent (2018)
  • American Chemical Society (ACS) PMSE Young Investigator (2018)
  • American Chemical Society (ACS) PRF Doctoral New Investigator (DNI) Award (2018)
  • National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award (2018-2023)
  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator Program (YIP) Award (2017-2020)
  • Virginia Tech Inventor of Month (July 2017)
  • B.S. Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University, P. R. China, 2005 
  • Ph.D. Chemical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2011
  • Postdoctoral Associate, Northwestern University, 2011-2014