BPI Seminar by Dr. Yong Ding
July 31, 2025, 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
Harnessing Wood's Hierarchical Porous Structure for Carbon-Negative & Sustainable Building Materials
Location: CHBE #202, 2360 East Mall Vancouver BC V6T 1Z4
Agenda
- 12:00 PM Intro by Dr. Orlando Rojas
- 12:05 PM Presentation by Dr. Yong Ding
- Wood Materials Science, Institute for Building Materials, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
- WoodTec Group, Cellulose & Wood Materials, Empa, Switzerland
- 12:45 PM Q&A
*Sandwiches & coffee will be provided from 11:45 AM.
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Abstract
Reducing atmospheric CO₂ is crucial for mitigating climate change and ensuring a sustainable future. The building sector is a major contributor, consuming 40% of global raw materials and accounting for 35% of global energy consumption. As a result, there is a growing demand for more sustainable building materials. In this regard, wood emerges as a material of significant potential. The hierarchical porous structure of the tree stem is an amazing evolutionary achievement. It makes wood strong and lightweight at the same time, a combination of properties highly desirable in the building sector. Moreover, the unique porous structure of wood make it an ideal scaffolding substrate for embedding chemical agents and developing hybrid composite materials. This presentation will focus on utilizing the hierarchical structure of wood as a scaffold in a top-down approach to develop functional wood-based composites. By making use of wood’s inherent directional porosity and combine it with structural and chemical modifications the wood scaffold can be equipped with novel functionalities such as fog harvesting, thermo-responsive actuation, and indoor climate control, thus demonstrating their great potential for energy-efficient smart buildings [1-5].
About the Speaker
Yong obtained her doctoral degree in Wood Materials Science from ETH Zurich in 2023, where her doctoral research focused on developing functionalized wood materials. Currently, she is leading the ‘Wood for Smart Buildings’ and ‘Wood for Carbon Storage’ Research Streams at Wood Materials group at ETH Zurich. Her research is dedicated to advancing functional wood composites toward sustainable, energy-efficient smart building applications. Dr. Ding's expertise lies in sustainable and carbon-negative building materials, focusing on enhancing the functionality and life cycle efficiency of wood-based composites.