Group Members

Professor Nick Miles

Nick is undertaking his second term as Provost of the University of Nottingham Ningbo China.

He is a mineral processing engineer with research experience in particle processing, waste minimisation, recycling and mineral processing. He has an extensive research portfolio (completed over 44 PhD supervisions) supported through UK Research Council, European, UK government, Zhejiang Provincial Government (China), Ningbo Municipal Government (China) and industry funding and a strong record of inter-disciplinary research with colleagues in the physical sciences, including Chemistry and Physics. He has been a member of assessment panels for EPSRC (chair and panel member), NERC, Defra, DTI, ECSC and EU; an external assessor for chair appointments at Imperial College, Cardiff and Cranfield Universities and has over 110 publications.

He has extensive experience of knowledge exchange and was founding member of a technology transfer unit delivering business support to SMEs in the old coalfield region of the East Midlands (1996-2000); a member of the Environmental Technology Centre – a resource centre delivering technology transfer, environmental and business support to SMEs (2000-2009); the external board member on the Hanson Environmental Fund which dispersed around £3m annually for community based environmental projects (2002-2008) and has attracted over £6m from European Regional Development Fund, East Midlands Development Agency and industry. He has acted as a consultant to numerous companies in the minerals, coal and nuclear industries including BP, DeBeers, Rio Tinto and RWE Npower.

Acting Associate Dean for Education and Student Experience, Head of Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Associate Professor in Chemical and Environmental Engineering

I have over 20 years’ industrial experience in the areas of hazardous waste management waste recycling and energy from waste. During my time in industry, I involved in the development of various technologies in waste incineration and waste management. I have been involved in the construction and commissioning of many recycling projects in China, Japan, Belgium, the USA and UK. I have extensive knowledge of the application of research and practical engineering. I have, experience in particle separation technologies for WEEE recycling, vibration separation and pneumatic separation. I have a special interest in the use of recycled plastics in manufacturing.

I started my PhD at the University of Nottingham in 2003, Closed Loop Recycling of CRT glass, following this I was made an European Innovation Fellow and was part of an Industrial Innovation Fund to achieve industrialization of this technology. I have continued research in waste recycling since he joined University of Nottingham Ningbo China. I have collaborated with local government and industries in various projects for the development of novel technologies for waste recycling.

Assistant Professor in Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, UNNC

I am an environmental engineer with research experience in the development of solid waste separation technologies. The rationale of my research is to concentrate or separate valuable fractions from solid waste stream at the earlier stage with physical approaches to improve the environmental performance of recovery process. Previous research projects includes pneumatic separation and vertical vibratory separation for metal recovery from shredded WEEE, attrition scrubbing for de-contamination of cast sand, density based separation of plastic pellets and flakes. The current project I am working on involves the recycling of lithium ion battery and plastic recycling for high value added plastics.

Dr Guozhen Li

Research Fellow in Clean Process Technology in Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, UNNC

Dr. Li is an environmental engineering with research experience in numerical and experimental investigations of swirl flows and its applications. He is currently investigating a geometrically induced swirl flow generated by a four-lobed swirl induction pipe section and its applications. This include but not limited to the intensification of Clean-In-Place process in closed processing systems by introducing swirl flows and ultrasonic monitoring methods, the application of swirl flow on Hydraulic/Pneumatic conveying to save energy and reduce wear, and the improvement of aerosol delivery performance of Dry Powder Inhalations devices by producing stronger particle-particle collision and particle-wall collision.

Dr Yitao Zheng

Postdoctoral research fellow in Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, UNNC

Dr. Yitao ZHENG’s primary research background lies in waste plastic recycling and utilization technologies. By applying the mathematical tools, the correlation between processing parameters, composites formula and different properties can be identified. His research aims to improve the performance of recycled plastics as well as extend the applicable area of recycled plastics. In addition, to reduce the environmental impacts of recycled plastic products for the goal of “Carbon Peak and Carbon neutrality”. His research projects include the development of recycled plastics for automobile parts manufacturing, the design and improvement of wood-plastic composites manufacturing. 

Jiarui Gao

Shuhan Wang

Yubang Shen

Xiaoqing Zhang

Qi Yang

Lucky Ogheneakpobo Ejeta

Qingzhen Zhang