Beijing Membrane Society recently announced the winners of its Outstanding Youth Achievement Award 2022. Our school’s PhD graduate Lin Weichen won the award for his research on membrane fouling mechanism. His research was completed under the supervision of Professor Huang Xia.

Lin Weichen and His Supervisor Prof. Huang Xia

Beijing Membrane Society Outstanding Youth Achievement Award aims to encourage innovation in membrane science and technology, and the cultivation of outstanding young talents engaged in this research field in China’s Jing-Jin-Ji region. As a highly impactful and recognized award, it attracts applicants of diverse fields every year, such as chemical engineering, materials science and engineering, and environmental science and engineering. The award went to five winners this year after formal review, preliminary evaluation and final evaluation.

Lin Weichen graduated with his bachelor’s degree from SOE, Tsinghua University in 2017 and obtained his doctoral degree also from Tsinghua in 2022. Lin’s research interests mainly focus on membrane fouling mechanism and membrane module optimization under high-pressure membrane technology. He innovatively establishes a quantitative method for evaluating the contribution of different fouling factors to membrane flux decline, and reveals the coupling effect and role shifting of inorganic, organic, and biological fouling during membrane process for municipal wastewater treatment based on the method. In his researches, he uncovers the influence of microgeometry of feed spacer on the hydrodynamics and thus on the membrane fouling, through microscale computational fluid dynamics simulation and local characterization of membrane fouling, providing an important reference for the optimization of spiral-wound membrane modules. Lin Weichen has already published 8 SCI papers in international journals, including Water Research, Journal of Membrane Science, Environment International, etc., of which he was the first author or co-first author. He has won 11 Best Oral Presentation Awards in academic conferences at home and abroad. In addition, Lin has received a number of honors and awards, including Gao Tingyao Scholarship for Outstanding Young Doctoral Student, Zijin Quanxing Environmental Foundation Outstanding Student Award, Organo (Water & Environment) Scholarship, National Scholarship for Doctoral Student, and Beijing Merit Student, etc. So far, Lin Weichen has been elected for “Shuimu Tsinghua Scholar” Program and won China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Fellowship, with SOE Prof. Huang Xia as his postdoc supervisor.