Team leader (or leader) and title: Professor Ming Zeng, a State-Sponsored Ph.D., has been selected for the "Young and Middle-aged Backbone Innovative Talent Training Program" at Universities in Tianjin and the Tianjin "131" Innovative Talent Training Project. Since June 2014, he has been working at the College of Marine and Environmental Sciences, Tianjin University of Science and Technology. His main research areas include new biological nitrogen removal technologies for sewage and aerobic granular sludge technology, utilizing big data machine learning and fluid dynamics simulation for software development and device optimization. He hasled 7 research projects, including 4 provincial and ministerial projects, published 18 SCI papers as the first author or corresponding author (10 in the second quartile or higher according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences), authorized 2 invention patents, 4 utility model patents, published 1 monograph, and won 2 provincial and ministerial awards, including the First Prize in Tianjin Science and Technology Progress. Beyond theoretical research, he has also translated his findings into practical applications for rural domestic sewage treatment, participated in the development and demonstration of domestic sewage purification tanks, and received strong support from the municipal Agricultural Commission and the Science and Technology Commission. He is affiliated with FUKAI DIWO (Tianjin) Environmental Protection Technology Co., LTD., providing technical guidance as a science and technology special correspondent, with projects covering 40% of rural domestic sewage in Tianjin.

Team members and titles: The team consists of 11 members, including Professor Guiju Li, Professor Qingzhu Jia, Associate Professor Baojuan Dou, Associate Professor Wu Zhang, and Associate Professo Ruihuar Zhao, among others. It is a multidisciplinary team with expertise in biology, materials science, and environmental chemistry. The team includes one Tianjin Outstanding Teacher, one Tianjin Teaching Master, one Tianjin May Day Labor Medal recipient, two Tianjin Discipline Backbone Teachers, two Discipline Youth Cultivation Talents, and three members in the third tier of the "131" Innovative Talent Training Project. All faculty members hold doctoral degrees, with 70% being young and middle-aged teachers, ensuring a well-balanced team structure. The team also includes over 30 graduate students.

Team Introduction:The Environmental Functional Materials Team primarily researches functional materials for pollution control and resource utilization. They develop new technologies, processes, and equipment for the treatment of coastal land-based water, air, and solid pollutants. The team has developed environmental functional materials for wastewater treatment, VOC control, and waste resource recycling technologies.

Over the past five years, they have completed 6 National Natural Science Foundation projects and over 10 provincial and ministerial projects, published over 50 SCI-indexed papers, authorized over 20 patents, received 3 provincial and ministerial first prizes or higher, 1 international award, and 5 municipal demonstration projects, and trained 62 graduate students.

The research areas mainly involve light chemical wastewater treatment, rural domestic sewage purification under the "Toilet Revolution," black water river management, VOC emission reduction, and biomass-derived chemicals. They have developed proprietary inorganic mineral coagulants, magnetic coagulants, special catalysts, dual-component micro-electrolysis materials, and high-efficiency adsorbents as environmental functional materials. They have also developed micro-electrolysis oxidation technology, catalytic pyrolysis technology, Fenton and photocatalytic advanced oxidation technology, internationally leading purification tank series and parallel integration technology, VOC low-temperature catalytic oxidation, and plasma treatment technology.

1. Water treatment coagulant: The team has developed domestic eco-friendly, non-toxic inorganic mineral coagulants that can completely replace traditional PAC and PFS coagulants, widely used in the treatment and resource recovery of special waters such as landfill leachate and aquaculture wastewater.

2. Sewage Biological Treatment Agents and Equipment:They have developed rural domestic sewage treatment agents, fillers, and equipment. The new anaerobic ammonia oxidation carrier achieves low-carbon biological nitrogen removal, and the hydrolysis tank integration technology can convert sewage into a uniform type of soluble sewage, reducing pipeline investment. The purification tank integration technology can reduce scum, inhibit sludge, efficiently treat, and operate unattended.

Technical Breakthroughs:

(1) Under the "pollution reduction and carbon reduction" background, targeting pollutants in water bodies, they have developed new functional materials for coastal land-based water pollutant treatment, including new membrane materials, natural and magnetic coagulants, special catalysts, electro-adsorption materials, micro-electrolysis materials, and more than 10 types of materials for the degradation and resource utilization of complex refractory organics in water bodies, forming 2 sets of characteristic technologies.

(2) In the context of artificial intelligence (AI), they use various data mining methods, data analysis and visualization software, and machine learning algorithms to simulate and predict pollutant degradation, design and optimize catalytic and remediation materials, such as explaining the stress resistance mechanism of low-carbon anaerobic ammonia oxidation denitrifying microorganisms, guiding engineering practice, and publishing over 10 SCI papers.

Research Achievements:

(1)Landmark Achievements

(2)Awards

(3)Patents

[1] ChangWang, A multi-household domestic sewage hydrolysis tank and multi-unit treatment device series and parallel combination equipment, ZL20151936960.3, 2018-08-21

[2] ChangWang, A multi-household domestic sewage hydrolysis tank and purification tank combination treatment device, ZL201510951896.6, 2018-04-13

[3] ChangWang, A benzoic acid domestic wastewater toluene residual phase biofilter purification method, 201510934664.x, 2018-04-08

[4] MingZeng, A high-efficiency embedded microbial gel and its preparation method, ZL 201710190649.8, 2020/06/16

[5] MingZeng, A pore-forming method for embedded microbial PVA gel material, ZL 201711118977.3, 2021/04/16