Skip to content

Professor Pingan Song

Professor Pingan Song
Name Pingan Song
Pronoun He/Him/His
Position Professor (High Performance Polymers)
Section School of Agriculture and Environmental Science
Office B411
Location Springfield Campus
Phone +61 7 3470 4105
Extension 4105
Email
Qualifications BSc Anhui , MSc ChineseAcadSci , DNatSc Zhejiang
Languages English (accredited translator)
Homepage https://research.usq.edu.au/researcher/80q39/prof-pingan-song
The views expressed on staff homepages may not reflect the views of the University.

Dr Pingan Song is currently Full Professor and Associate Head of School (Research) within the School of Agriculture and Environmental Science. He has been named on the 2023 Clarivate's Highly Cited Researchers list. His research interests include fire retardants and polymers/ polymer composites as well as their structure-property correlations, which aims to solve real-world problems in the areas of electronics, energy, transport, automotive, building and constructions. Dr Song received his PhD degree in Chemistry from Zhejiang University in 2009. He joined University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ) as Senior Research Fellow in 2016, was awarded ARC Future Fellow in 2019, and then promoted to Associate Professor (2020) and Full Professor (2021). Before joining UniSQ, he started his academic career at Zhejiang A & F University, China as Lecturer (2009), and was promoted to Associate Professor (2011) and Full Professor (2016). As a lead Chief Investigator (CI) or co-CI, he has successfully secured more than 30 grants including ARC Future Fellowship, ARC DP, ARC LP, ARC Research Hub, and ARC LIFE as well as two National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC equivalent to ARC) projects, with a total research funding of over AU$11 million from multiple funding bodies in the last two decades. Dr Song has co-authored 260+ peer-reviewed publications in high-tier international journals, such as Science, Adv. Mater., Matter, ACS Nano, Adv. Funct. Mater., and Macromolecules. His publications have received 18,000+ times of citations, with an H-index of 83 (Google Scholar). His works have also been highlighted by multiple media outlets, including Science, Chemistry World and MIT Technical Review, and he has also been interviewed by the ABC News and Toowoomba Seven News. On top of that, one of his works has been selected for ARC Annual Report 2021-22. He has filed over 20 patents, and delivered over 20 invited talks, including keynotes. He is currently serving as Associate Editor for Sustainable Materials and Technologies (Elsevier, JCR Q1, IF: 9.6), and Frontiers in Materials (Frontiers, JCR Q2, IF: 3.985); Assistant Editor for Composites Part B: Engineering (Elsevier, JCR Q1, IF: 13.1) (handling submissions on fire retardants and polymer composites), and Journal of Materials Science & Technology (Elsevier, JCR Q1, IF: 9.8); and Editorial Advisory Board Member for ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (American Chemical Society, JCR Q1, IF:8.4).


  • Polymers and Plastics ( 091209 )
  • Composite and Hybrid Materials ( 091202 )
  • Theory and Design of Materials ( 030307 )
  • Polymers And Plastics ( 401609 )
  • Composite And Hybrid Materials ( 401602 )
  • Materials Engineering ( 401600 )
  • Macromolecular And Materials Chemistry ( 340300 )
  • Organic Chemical Synthesis ( 340503 )
  • Inorganic Green Chemistry ( 340204 )
  • Macromolecular Materials ( 340302 )
  • Organic Chemistry ( 340500 )
  • Organic Green Chemistry ( 340504 )
  • Inorganic Chemistry ( 340200 )

1. Polymeric materials and polymer composites (e.g., compatibilisation, strengthening/toughening, structure-property correlation, etc.)
2. Fire retardants and fire retardant coatings
3. Fire-warning/Strain/Humidity Sensors
4. Bioderived Materials, Bioplastics, and treatment of micro-/nano-plastics

Supervision
I am currently supervising 2 Research Fellows, 5 PhD students, with 1 new PhD and 2 visiting scholars in the near future. As well, I am co-supervising 2 PhD students and 6 master students. To date I have supervised 1 Research Fellow, 4 PhD and 8 master students to completion.


Professional Activities
Guest Editor of Special Issue- “Polymer Composites and Nanocomposite Materials” in Engineered Science, Engineering
Science, 2022.
Academic Editor of Journal of Nanomaterials (2020 IF: 2.986), Hindawi, 2021.
Associate Editor of Frontiers in Materials (2021 IF: 3.515), Frontiers, 2020
Editorial Board Member of Composites Part B: Engineering (2021 IF: 11.332), Elsevier, 2019
Guest Editor of Special Issue- “Flame Retardants and Flame-Retardant Polymers/Composites” in Composites Part B:
Engineering (IF: 9.078), 2019
Assessor for Australian Research Council, Natural National Science Foundation of China, Swiss National Research
Foundation, and Slovakia National Research Foundation, etc.

Research Committee
Scientific Committee Member of the 19th European Meeting on Fire Retardant Polymeric Materials (FRPM23)
Switzerland, June 26-29, 2023
Young Committee Member of the 7th International Symposium on Fire-Retardant Materials & Technologies (ISFRMT),
Beijing, 23-25 Sept 2022
Co-Chair of 2019 Australian Flame Retardants and Fire Safety Workshop (FRFS-2019), 2019.
Session Chair of Polymeric Materials of 2019 China-Australia Civil, Materials, and Environment Forum (CAF2019), 2019.
Session Chair of Flame Retardant Polymers in 11th Asian- Australasian Conference on Composite Materials (ACCM-11),
2018.

Honours and Awards
Highly Cited Author (Top 5 highly cited works from Australia), RSC, 2021
Top 2% of world scientists-2021 (Stanford University), 2021
Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship (FT2), 2019.
Scientific and Technological Progress Award (3rd Prize) of Gaoyou City, Jiangsu, 2018 (Ranking: 2/4)
The Second-Class Award of Natural Science of Zhejiang Province, 2015 (Ranking: 4/5)
Membership Award of American Chemical Society (ACS) (Bonus: $ 474), 2015
Scientific and Technological Progress Award (2nd Prize) of Ningbo City, Zhejiang, 2015
Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, Deakin University, 2013
Natural Scientific Academic Award (2nd Prize) of Zhejiang Province, 2012 (Ranking: 1/5)
Scientific Research Achievements Award of Higher Education Institutions (2nd Prize) of Zhejiang Province, 2011


Member of Plastic Processing Society of Zhejiang


  • Centre for Future Materials (CFM)
  • Institute for Advanced Engineering and Space Sciences (IAESS)

MEC2202 Manufacturing Processes
CHE2120 Chemistry
CHE2810 Food Chemistry
CHE2820 Principles of Food Analysis


10 Years


Associate Head (Research) of School of Agriculture and Environmental Science (2024-2025)
Facilities Committee Member of Centre for Future Materials (CFM)


  • Polymers and Plastics ( 091209 )
  • Composite and Hybrid Materials ( 091202 )
  • Theory and Design of Materials ( 030307 )
  • Polymers And Plastics ( 401609 )
  • Composite And Hybrid Materials ( 401602 )
  • Materials Engineering ( 401600 )
  • Macromolecular And Materials Chemistry ( 340300 )
  • Organic Chemical Synthesis ( 340503 )
  • Inorganic Green Chemistry ( 340204 )
  • Macromolecular Materials ( 340302 )
  • Organic Chemistry ( 340500 )
  • Organic Green Chemistry ( 340504 )
  • Inorganic Chemistry ( 340200 )