Prof. CHEN Guanghao & Prof. Francesco CIUCCI Received the First Green Tech Fund

13/10/2021

Promoting New Energy & Low-Carbon Waste Management

Prof. CHEN Guanghao & Prof. Francesco CIUCCI Received the First Green Tech Fund

Two projects of Prof. Chen Guanghao (left) and Prof. Francesco Ciucci (right) have been approved in the first round of applications in the Hong Kong government’s Green Tech Fund, among over 190 applications. [Download Photo]

Two projects led by Prof. CHEN Guanghao and Prof. Francesco CIUCCI respectively were among the first batch of eight projects that have been approved in the first round of applications in the Green Tech Fund.

The HK$200 million Green Tech Fund (GTF) was set up by the Hong Kong government in 2020 to provide better and more focused funding support for research and development projects which can help Hong Kong decarbonize and enhance environmental protection as the city strives toward its goal of carbon neutrality before 2050. All applications are considered and assessed by the GTF Assessment Committee which is chaired by the Director of Environmental Protection and comprises members from academia, industry and green groups.

The fund received an overwhelming response of over 190 applications in the first round of applications. The eight approved projects were submitted by four local universities and a private enterprise.

Led by Prof. Chen Guanghao of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the project titled “Reducing Biological Landfill Leachate Treatment Footprint via Rapid Electrochemical-UV Technologies” received close to HK$6.7 million for a period of two and a half years. The project aims to explore the possibility to turn hardly treatable black water from a landfill site to be co-treatable with a downstream wastewater treatment plant to minimize the cost and space of the black water treatment.

The project on “Green Hydrogen Production from Active Flow Membraneless Electrolyzers”, led by Prof. Francesco Ciucci of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, was awarded about HK$3.2 million for a period of three years. The goal of this project is to develop an innovative electrolyzer to produce green hydrogen at a cost significantly below that of conventional electrolyzers. The project will allow the scale-up of the current prototype stack and to demonstrate that it is cost-competitive against CO_²-emitting grey hydrogen.