Xuan Li

Proper transportation and treatment of wastewater is fundamental to sustainability and public health in urban cities. Modern sewage networks, stretching over 10 million kilometers worldwide, are essential to keeping cities livable. However, concrete corrosion can significantly shorten its service life by up to 90%, while the energy and resource demands of treatment processes place heavy burdens on both the economy and the environment.

Xuan Li and her team innovatively developed a corrosion-resistant concrete using nitrite, providing a proactive, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly solution for corrosion control. Validation of this technology in an actual sewer system demonstrated that, with an investment of only 3% of the concrete material cost, it could extend the concrete's service life by 40%. This concrete was also proven to have no adverse impact on downstream wastewater treatment or the surrounding environment.

Xuan Li and her collaborators also developed a novel waste resource recovery technology, using by-products from wastewater treatment and the pulp and paper industry. These technologies boost bioenergy recovery by 2-6 times, utilizing readily available waste byproducts and reducing reliance on external energy sources or chemicals. This approach not only reduces the environmental and economic burden of wastewater treatment, but also enables wastewater treatment plants to generate enough electricity to meet their own needs and power thousands of households.

Beyond infrastructure and energy, she and her team pioneered the use of wastewater-based epidemiology to develop disease monitoring tools through artificial intelligence. By detecting pathogens for infectious diseases in wastewater, this approach provides early warning in diverse communities, empowering cities to act swiftly in protecting community health.

Overall, these innovative achievements have not only significantly advanced the environmental protection industry and manufacturing, promoted sustainable environmental development, but also provided strong support for the precise prevention and control of epidemics.