Anthony Chun Yin Yuen

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University | PolyU · Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering

MXene is a class of 2D materials exfoliated from ternary carbide and nitride ceramics. During synthesis, etching and delamination conditions affect the quality, overall crystallinity, defects and surface functionalization of MXene flakes. In this article, the morphological structure of MXene (Ti3C2) nanosheets under temperature between 20 °C and 60...

Combustibility of insulation and external façade remains a critical issue for many countries as they are commonly found in modern building structures. While standardised fire tests can be carried out to examine the flammability limits of building polymers, they cannot inform us of the toxicity and smoke productions of the underlying materials. With...

The inherent shortcomings such as flammability, brittleness, and low crystallinity limit the broad applications of poly(lactic acid) (PLA). To improve the fire resistance and mechanical properties of PLA, a chitosan-based core-shell flame retardant additive (APBA@PA@CS) was prepared for PLA via the self-assembly of interionic interactions among chi...

This work investigated the effects of ambient and injection conditions on the autoignition, flame evolution and combustion characteristics of the natural gas jets at direct-injection (DI) compression-ignition (CI) conditions. Methane (CH4, as a natural gas surrogate) was directly injected into an optically accessible constant-volume combustion cham...

With an increasingly wider application of the lithium-ion battery (LIB), specifically the drastic increase of electric vehicles in cosmopolitan cities, improving the thermal and fire resilience of LIB systems is inevitable. Thus, in-depth analysis and performance-based study on battery thermal management system (BTMs) design have arisen as a popula...

Carbon derived from peanut shell (CPS) with 2D structure has been proved to own sufficient thermal stability and is a promising flame retardant (FR) additive for EP in our previous work. To further explore the feasibility of implementing CPS into the intumescent fire retardant (IFR) system, a novel green IFR system was first proposed in this study....

This work investigates the effects of ambient and injection parameters on the ignition and combustion characteristics of hydrogen (H2)-methane (CH4) jet (50% H2 by volume, with the remaining CH4) in simulated direct-injection, compression-ignition conditions. Parameter variations include ambient gas temperature (1060-1200 K), ambient oxygen (O2) co...

A novel and hierarchical hybrid composite (MnO2@CHS@SA@Ni) was synthesized utilizing manganese dioxide (MnO2) nanosheets as the core structure, self-assembly chitosan (CHS), sodium alginate (SA) and nickel species (Ni) as surface layers, and it was further incorporated into an epoxy matrix for achieving fire hazard suppression via surface self-asse...

With the increasing demand for energy capacity and power density in battery systems, the thermal safety of lithium-ion batteries has become a major challenge for the upcoming decade. The heat transfer during the battery thermal runaway provides insight into thermal propagation. A better understanding of the heat exchange process improves a safer de...

Evidence suggests that in the event of a fire accident, a certain number of building occupants escape through smoke-filled environments. Consequently, evaluating the corresponding evacuation performance under such life-threatening conditions is important for advancing fire safety analyses. This study aimed to develop a fire-integrated evacuation mo...

Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) is widely used in daily life due to its characteristics of light weight, high impact strength, and compression resistance. However, TPU products are extremely flammable and will generate toxic fumes under fire attack, threatening human life and safety. In this article, a nanohybrid flame retardant was designed for t...

In this article, a collective database from validated numerical simulation has been established to study the suppression effects of water-based suppression systems under a single-compartment fire scenario at various suppression configurations and fire locations. Five fuel locations along the axis between the centre and corner of the room were confi...

Thermal management system generally ensures the safe operating conditions and heat resilience of battery packs in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). The current study raised a novel approach to reduce fire risks related to HEVs through a novel battery thermal management system powered by low-grade combustion waste heat running on steam ejectors for t...

The widespread application of lithium-ion batteries as the practice facility of energy storage has come alongside much unforeseen fire safety and thermal runaway issues that leads to increasing research interests. A comprehensive understanding of the thermal features of battery packs and the heat exchange process of energy storage systems is impera...

Natural fibre biopolymer composites with both fibres and matrix being derived from biomaterials are increasingly used in demanding applications, such as sensing, packaging, building, and transport, and require good electrical, thermal, and flame retardant properties. Herein, an investigation of the effectiveness of functionalising nonwoven cotton/p...

Demand for underground railways has rapidly increased due to accelerated urbanisation and population growth. This has elevated the importance of tunnel designs with adequate fire safety and protection measures. However, due to intricate modern rail tunnel designs, prescriptive codes are often difficult to implement and lead to over-conservative des...

Although lithium-ion batteries are increasingly being used to achieve cleaner energy, their thermal safety is still a major concern, particularly in the fields of energy-storage power stations and electric vehicles with high energy-storage density. Therefore, the battery thermal management systems (BTMs) have been extensively applied, among which p...

Further knowledge regarding flame-retardant materials suited for fire-resistant applications is necessary in order to meet safety requirements and minimize fire risks in polymers. The present work examines cellulose as a suitable material for polymer-based flame-retardant material, due to its attractiveness as an alternative to petroleum-based poly...

Lithium metal anode has attracted wide attention due to the highest theoretical specific capacity, the lowest anode potential, and low gravimetric density. Nevertheless, the uncontrollable growth of lithium dendrites during the cycling process may pierce through polymer separator and induce safety concerns extremely restricting the further applicat...

A new predictive fire suppression model has been developed and applied to a compartment room environment with various fire locations to clarify the suppression mechanisms of water mist and sprinkler systems. To effectively mitigate the combustion process, an in-depth framework has been developed, which includes the thermal fluidic interactions and...

The increasing popularity of lithium-ion battery systems, particularly in electric vehicles and energy storage systems, has gained broad research interest regarding performance optimization, thermal stability, and fire safety. To enhance the battery thermal management system, a comprehensive investigation of the thermal behaviour and heat exchange...

The oxidation of graphene-based material (i.e. graphite, graphene) is a reaction of immense importance owing to its extensive industrial application (i.e. nanocomposites, flame retardants, energy storage). Although immense experimental works were carried out for identifying the thermal degradation and oxidation process of graphene, they generally l...

Antibacterial surfaces in healthcare settings are an important tool for combating the increasing threat of antibacterial drug resistance, which the global Covid-19 pandemic has further exacerbated. Herein, we report a new method to achieve dual antibacterial and flame retardant functionalities in flexible polyurethane foam (PUF) by synthesising a m...

Recently, multiple challenges are remained for large-scale preparation of MXene-based films towards electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding due to the limited durability and poor mechanical performance of MXene itself. Herein, a sandwich-structured MXene composite film was achieved via the casting process by utilizing a non-woven fabric (NWF)...

As one of the lightest materials in the world, aerogels are widely applied in heat insulation, electrical magnetic shielding, oil-water separation, etc. Nevertheless, owing to their high flammability, the application scenarios of aerogels in extreme environments are severely limited. To reduce the intrinsic inflammable properties of aerogels, nanom...

Polystyrene (PS) is one of the most commonly used general plastics. Nonetheless, PS is greatly limited by its inherent disadvantages such as intrinsic flammability, low stability and brittleness. To address these issues, 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(4-bromophenyl) porphyrin (TBPP) and zinc 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(4-bromophenyl) porphyrin (Zn-TBPP) were synthesi...

The rapid development of promising potassium-ion batteries (PIBs) is still greatly hindered by typical constraints, including sluggish diffusion kinetics and structural degradation caused by severe volume vibration during the intercalation/deintercalation of K⁺. To eliminate such issues, herein we designed a novel lamellar network structure constru...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the development process of the fire whirl in the fixed-frame facility and focus on the impacts of the fire whirl’s vortex core on the formation and flame structure of the fire whirl. Design/methodology/approach The complex turbulent reacting flame surface is captured by the large eddy simulation...

A set of numerical analyses was conducted to investigate the effect of fuel location of dual burners in an under-ventilated ISO9705 compartment room. Moreover, the influences of the burner separation displacement on the fire development, the evolution of thermal layers, the distribution of toxic gas species were comprehensively studied. The simulat...

Understanding and characterisation of the pyrolysis and burning behaviour of flame retardant (FR) polymers are essential towards optimising the end-product in terms of flammability, charring, toxicity and smoke reduction. This study proposes a modelling framework to study the combustion behaviour, pyrolysis kinetics and FR mechanisms of FR treated...

Building polymers implemented into building panels and exterior façades have been determined as the major contributor to severe fire incidents, including the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire incident. To gain a deeper understanding of the pyrolysis process of these polymer composites, this work proposes a multi-scale modelling framework comprising of apply...

Aqueous suppression systems (i.e. fire sprinkler, water mist) have been extensively utilised for compartmental fire suppression due to their significant heat extraction ability. Nevertheless, challenges can be foreseen in suppressing water-reactive chemicals as a violent explosive reaction will be triggered, such as alkali metals (i.e. Na, Li) and...

In this study, a multiphase pyrolysis model has been proposed under the large eddy simulation (LES) framework incorporating moving boundary surface tracking, char formation, and detailed chemical kinetics combustion modelling. The proposed numerical model was applied to simulate the cone calorimeter test of two kinds of materials: (i) pinewood (cha...

This work aims to investigate the effect of laser-induced plasma ignition (LI) on combustion behaviours of iso-octane (a gasoline surrogate) at compression-ignition (CI) conditions. A high-energy laser was used to force the fuel ignition at a quiescent-steady environment inside an optically accessible constant-volume combustion chamber with 900 K a...

Fire testing data consistency and repeatability are essential for regulatory scrutiny, product development, and fire modelling of the lightweight cladding system. Lightweight composite claddings such as aluminium composite panels (ACPs) have been challenging to assess in terms of combustibility and flammability due to their sandwiched composite str...

Biomass-derived carbon has been recognised as a green, economic and promising flame retardant (FR) for polymer matrix. In this paper, it is considered that the two-dimensional (2D) structure of carbonised peanut shells (PS) can lead to a physical barrier effect on polymers. The carbonised sample was prepared by the three facile methods, and firstly...

With the recent developments of composite polymer materials, the usage of synthetic materials in interior furnishing has rapidly increased. Polymeric foams such as polyurethane (PU) and polyethylene (PE) are widely applied as upholstered furniture and wall insulations. Nevertheless, the occurrence of fire in a confined environment surrounded by com...

Residential buildings consume a large amount of energy in operation, which can be reduced by planning energy-efficient design and operation strategies. Understanding and quantifying the impact of key driving factors to the residential building energy end-use is essential for promoting more energy-efficient building design and operation schemes. Alt...

Cotton, the most popular textile fibre used today, suffers from high combustibility and a propensity for microbial growth. In this study, we used oxygen tolerant, visible light-activated free radical polymerisation to functionalise cotton with a biocompatible, fire retardant, antimicrobial coating that provided good fire retardancy when dry, and qu...

Modern buildings and structures are commonly equipped with fire safety detection and protection systems. Owing to the complexity in building architectures, performance-based fire engineering designs are often applied to achieve safety compliance criteria in stipulated fire events. With the uprising popularity of computer simulation fire predictive...

The widespread use of lithium-ion batteries as the practice facility of energy storage has attracted intense interest in the battery safety issue due to many thermal abuse accidents in recent decades. Suppose a single battery cell temperature is increased beyond a certain threshold. In that case, a thermal runaway can occur, resulting in a rapid te...

The oxidation of carbon-based material (i.e. graphite, graphene) is a reaction of immense importance owing to its extensive industrial application (i.e. nuclear reactors, aerospace composites). Carbon oxidation is also one of the most fundamentally essential heterogeneous reactions. Although comprehensive experimental studies on the oxidation of gr...

Owing to the well-established Eulerian-Lagrangian framework on mixture fluids, computational fluid dynamics coupled with discrete element model (CFD-DEM) is an effective while appropriate tool to predict the complex interactive fire behaviours associate with suppression effects. Although suppression behaviours between hydrocarbon-fuelled fire and w...

Nowadays, highly flexible, ultrathin, and conductive polymer composites are exceptionally desirable for electromagnetic interference shielding (EMI) applications due to their unique mechanical strength and electrical and flame-resistant properties. While the traditional nanocomposites blending remains the mainstream method to fabricate polymer/inor...

A high-performance smoke exhaust system is vital for maintaining a tenable environment during fire accidents evacuation. This study proposes a novel vortex flow driven smoke exhaust system to delay the smoke filling process during the atrium fire accident. The complex fluid movement and combustion reactions were predicted using Fire Dynamics Simula...

Acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) resin is a commonly used engineering thermoplastic. Nevertheless, the fire toxicity hazards (HCN, NOx, NH3 and CO) generated from the combustion of ABS remains a major concern, especially in building fire scenarios. To address this issue, boron dipyrromethene (BODIPY) modified MXene (Ti3C2Tx) nanosheets were pr...

An advanced numerical model for modeling spontaneous condensation phenomena of water vapor was presented to investigate the flow behaviors in a converging-diverging nozzle for potential application in fire suppression using steam ejectors. The numerical model is validated against existing experimental data, which shows a good agreement. The propose...

Lightweight polymeric materials have been widely applied in modern society. However, many of these polymeric materials are highly flammable, causing great fire risks to people’s lives and belongings. The fire hazards associated with these flammable polymeric materials have been regarded as a major issue to be addressed. These flammable polymeric ma...

When evacuees directly confront a life-endangering situation in a fire accident, the raised stress created by the physical threat of fire tends to affect evacuees' escape behaviours (i.e., shifting from a calm exit mannerism to a stressful escape behaviour). This behavioural phenomenon inevitably affects crowd movement patterns and subsequently, th...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to review and summarise the existing available literature on lightweight cladding systems to provide detailed information on fire behaviour (ignitibility, heat release rate and smoke toxicity) and various test method protocols. Additionally, the paper discusses the challenges and provides updated knowledge and r...

Multifunctional building façades have become an increasingly critical component in modern buildings, especially after the tremendous scrutiny triggered by the utilization of combustible aluminum cladding panels (ACP) in the construction sector. Following the massive effort by both industry and government agencies to reduce the fire risks of combust...

The development of flame retardant rigid polyurethane foam (RPUF) composites with low smoke toxicity emission, as well as excellent mechanical properties remains a huge challenge. Herein, a facile wet chemical approach was proposed for the preparation of cuprous oxide (Cu2O) crystals with different sizes, i.e. approximately 5 nm, 100 nm and 1 μm in...

Empirical evidence suggests that evacuees tend to break down their well-coordinated motion and adopt competitive egress behaviour when they are confronting life-endangering situations (e.g., fire accident, earthquake). This phenomenon significantly influences crowd dynamics, and subsequently, the overall evacuation time. In this paper, a novel evac...

Recent discoveries of two-dimensional transitional metal based materials have emerged as an excellent candidate for fabricating nanostructured flame-retardants. Herein, we report an eco-friendly flame-retardant for flexible polyurethane foam (PUF), which is synthesised by hybridising MXene (Ti $$_3\hbox {C}_2$$ 3 C 2 ) with biomass materials includ...

Analyzing the heat transfer effectiveness of fire suppression systems at droplet level through experimentation is difficult and costly. To overcome this issue, traditional Eulerian–Lagrangian model has been modified to track droplet histories in association with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) fluid models. This allows a comprehensive descriptio...

In recent years, the applications of lithium-ion batteries have emerged promptly owing to its widespread use in portable electronics and electric vehicles. Nevertheless, the safety of the battery systems has always been a global concern for the end-users. The separator is an indispensable part of lithium-ion batteries since it functions as a physic...

The flame-retardant properties of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)/oxidised multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT–COOH) nanocomposite films were dispersed using a nonionic acrylate copolymer surfactant. The nanocomposite films were prepared by spin coating and characterised using SEM, quasi-elastic cold-neutron scattering, TGA–FTIR, cone calorimetry, and...