CIVL Team Wins TECO Technological Innovation Contest
A team from HKUST’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering struck gold at the 2017 TECO Technological Innovation Contest. The team made up of Weiqi Xue, Qian Zeng, Sen Lin and Feixiang Zan (students of Prof. Chen Guanghao and Dr. Hao Tianwei) was awarded a gold medal for the technology “an innovative and energy efficient approach to produce bioactive sulfated polysaccharides from waste”.
The purpose of this innovative technology is to produce sulfated polysaccharides—a scarce pharmaceutical intermediate—from excess sludge. In other words, the technology has the distinct advantage of offering not only a resource recovery-oriented and energy-efficient approach for sludge treatment, but also a solution to the worldwide shortage in supply of sulfated polysaccharides.
Established in 2006 to highlight the latest technological trends, the TECO Technological Innovation Contest has adopted “Green Tech” as its main theme since 2008. Throughout the past decade the world has continued to face rocketing levels of energy consumption and new challenges from climate change. “Green Tech” and sustainable development have become extremely important and urgent for the survival of the human race.
The TECO Technological Innovation Contest is conducted in two categories: the Main and International Contests. Every year, teams from different countries and universities gather in Taiwan with innovative green technologies to compete for the honor of "best technology that benefits sustainable development and energy conservation". This year, 40 top teams out of 300 participants from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Russia and the US were selected for the final competition, and a committee comprising senior scholars and industrial experts from Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan selected the winners based on innovation, impact on sustainable development, applicability and completeness of technology.
Our heartfelt congratulations to the gold medalists for their innovative work and the very well-deserved honor!
