On the afternoon of September 9th, 2024, Professor Li Jie from the Department of Civil Engineering at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia, an expert in the school level high-end foreign expert project, gave an academic lecture titled Reproducing Healthcare Waste: Transforming PPE Waste into Construction Materials in Conference Room 8A521 of the Modern Transportation Engineering Center. The lecture was held by the School of Urban Railway Transportation at Shanghai University of Engineering and Technology, and was chaired by Professor Wang Lei, Vice Dean of the School.
At the beginning of the meeting, Professor Wang Lei solemnly introduced Professor Li Jie and expressed gratitude for her years of support for the development of the college.
At the meeting, Professor Li Jie first introduced the relevant situation of Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and then focused on the research results on the recycling and reuse of personal protective equipment waste in infrastructure construction. Medical waste, including personal protective equipment waste, has caused serious environmental pollution. The RMIT research team led by Professor Li Jie has conducted a series of groundbreaking studies exploring the feasibility of using medical plastics (including masks, gloves, and isolation gowns) for various infrastructure materials such as asphalt, roadbeds, base and sub base layers, as well as concrete. Using chopped mask fibers as additives for hot mix asphalt to improve road performance and achieve waste recycling. The team conducted comprehensive mechanical and microstructural testing, and the results showed that adding specific amounts of medical plastics to these applications can improve the performance of concrete and pavement structures. Professor Li's rich knowledge, unique approach to solving scientific problems, and vivid teaching style have greatly inspired the teachers and students present.
After the meeting, the teachers and students who participated in the academic lecture actively discussed with Professor Li Jie how to combine social hotspots with academia and how to select materials in experiments. The atmosphere at the conference was lively, and the teachers and students present listened attentively to and studied the lecture content, further broadening their academic horizons.
Professor Li Jie is an expert in the 2024 school level high-end foreign expert project of our institute and a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia. Engaged in long-term research in fields such as unsaturated soil and building materials. His research on the characteristics of expansive soil and its interaction with foundations has been included in the Australian Ground Foundation Code AS287. So far, more than 170 international academic journal articles have been published.Since 2018, Professor Li has published over 90 papers in well-known SCI journals. His paper has received over 4580 citations (h-index=42) in the Elsevier SciVerse Scopus database, while according to Google Scholar statistics, it has received over 6800 citations (h-index=49).