Chinese Version

University of Osaka Professor Tohru Sekino Attends Graduate School Academic Forum

On December 9th 2017, Professor Tohru Sekino of the Institute of Scientific Industry of Osaka University in Japan came to SMSE for an academic forum of the SMSE Graduate School. The event hosts were Vice President of the Materials Institute, Professor Cao Wenbin, and Director of the USTB International Office, Mrs. Guo Kanjun.

Following the introductory remarks, Professor Tohru delivered an academic report titled "Materials Tuning of Titanium Nanotubes Aiming for Multifunctional Nanostructured Materials," after which he was presented with a Letter of Appreciate by Professor Cao and Mrs. Guo.

At the beginning of the forum, Professor Cao discussed the development history and institutional layout of our university's material sciences program. When Professor Tohru delivered his presentation afterwards, he started by introducing the research background and preparation methods of titanium dioxide nanotubes and low-dimensional nanomaterials. The research group prepared Titanium dioxide nanotubes (TNT) in a simple manner under low temperature conditions without a templating agent, and found that it had a strong free radical generating ability under ultraviolet irradiation. Additionally, compared with conventional nano titanium dioxide powder, traces of hydrogen were found. Furthermore, its efficiency was increased several times, particularly its photocatalytic efficiency, and the absorption of metal Cs+ was found to be stronger than that of zeolite, which means TNTs can be widely used in the fields of environmental governance and new energy preparation, among others. The 0-dimensional and 1-dimensional nanomaterials were assembled into different low-dimensional nanomaterials with better performance, such as TNT combined with precious metals. Among them, the Ni/TNT materials prepared by the CVrD method were found to have Ni nanoparticles internally in the TNT. Others included TNT/GO (graphene) composite 2D/1D materials and TNT/CNT (carbon nanotubes) composites, which after being subjected to different concentrations of hydrogen peroxide treatments were found to have strong physical adsorption properties and visible light responses. The alkali-treated TNT surface hydroxyl group was converted to a peroxy group and was bonded to the Ti atom.

After the report was over, Professor Tohru answered audience questions and provided new research directions and ideas for everyone’s scientific work. At the conclusion of the event Professor Tohru posed with event attendees for a group photo.

Tohru Sekino academic profile: 

Professor Tohru Sekino graduated from Tohoku University in Japan with a master's degree in Materials Chemistry in 1990. In 1997, he received a Ph.D. in Substance Chemistry from Otsuka University in Japan. From 1990 to 1999, he worked as an Assistant Research Fellow for the Institute of Science and Industry in Osaka University. From 1999 to 2007 he was Assistant Professor in Osaka University’s Graduate School of Science and Engineering. In 2007 Professor Tohru began working as Associate Professor in Tohoku University, where he stayed until 2013.

Since April 2013 he has worked as a part-time Lecturer at the Sendai National Institute of Science and Technology, as well as a part-time Lecturer at Nagasaki University since September 2013. Professor Tohru has worked since April 2014 as Professor at Osaka University’s Institute of Science and Industry, and as Assistant to the Dean at Osaka University’s Institute of Scientific Industry since April 2016.