Prof Guanghao Chen’s Research Team Won Four International Awards for Innovative Hybrid Water Resource System and Novel Sewage Treatment Technology

The School of Engineering is pleased to announce that the research team led by Prof Guanghao Chen of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering has recently been presented a Global Honor Award of the Project Innovation Awards (PIA) by the International Water Association (IWA) of UK, the world’s largest water professional organization. The award, in the category of applied research, recognized their contributions in “making use of seawater as an alternative resource”. It was presented at the IWA World Water Congress in Busan, Korean in September.

Before advancing to the global competition, the team had competed at the regional round and received the Honor Award of PIA in the East Asia Region in July. In the global competition, they competed with winning teams from other regional bases and received the Global Honor Award.

In addition to the two PIA awards, the team also received from IWA the Runner-Up Award of Sustainability Specialist Group Prize for innovation in the practical realization of sustainable urban water management.

Prof Chen’s team developed the innovative triple water supply system – a hybrid water resources system and two novel sewage treatment technologies, namely the Sulphate Reduction, Autotrophic Denitrification and Nitrification Integrated (SANI) process – a sewage treatment technology which practically reduces 90% sludge production, and the SUPR process – a seawater-based urine phosphorus recovery process. Team members include the Hong Kong Airport Authority, the Hong Kong Drainage Services Department, the Hong Kong Water Supplies Department, the University of Cape Town in South Africa and the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Prof Chen’s PhD student was also recently recognized by an international honor. Dr Hui Lu, a 2011 HKUST PhD graduate in Civil Engineering, won the 2nd prize of Huber Technology Award at IFAT ENTSORGA 2012 on 8 May, the world’s leading trade fair for water, sewage, waste, and raw materials management with about 125,000 visitors, for his PhD work in developing and demonstrating the SANI process which reduced 90% sewage sludge and 50% treatment cost. Dr Lu is the only awardee from Asia. The Huber Technology Prize, set up by the Huber Technology Foundation, awards outstanding young researchers in the world on innovative water technology development. Huber Technology is a world’s leading multinational water technology company based in Germany.