MOU between PolyU and Qilu University of Technology for partnership in sustainable development of the lithium-based new energy

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and the Qilu University of Technology have signed a memorandum of understanding for a cooperative project titled “Critical Technologies for Comprehensive Recycling and Regeneration of Spent Power Lithium-ion Battery”. Led by Dr YU Xiaoliang, Department of Mechanical Engineering of PolyU, and Prof. ZHU Yunhai, High-Tech Industry (Pilot) Base of the Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), the collaboration aims to establish a joint research laboratory to conduct research and development on the critical technologies for comprehensive recycling and regeneration of spent power lithium-ion battery through a long-term and in-depth strategic partnership. It is expected to further contribute to the sustainable development of the lithium-based new energy industry. As the demand for electric vehicles continues to surge, the production of power lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has also seen a corresponding rapid increase. This phenomenon has led to an explosive rise in the number of spent power LIBs. Addressing this challenge, comprehensive recycling and regeneration, including the recovery and reuse of spent LIBs, emerges as a promising development direction to maximize resource utilization. The signing ceremony for the framework agreement was held on 28 May at the 2024 Shandong-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Conference in Hong Kong Science & Technology Parks. The document of cooperation was signed by Prof. DONG Cheng, Associate Vice President (Mainland Research Advancement) of PolyU and Prof. WU Yantao, Secretary of the Party Committee of Qilu University of Technology, and Mr LIN Wu, Secretary of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee, also attended this ceremony. Through such collaborative efforts, both parties will explore opportunities for research and technology transfer in the critical technologies for comprehensive recycling and regeneration of spent power lithium-ion batteries. The signing of this Memorandum of Understanding serves as a record of the current understanding of the potential scope of cooperation and reach a preliminary understanding of the framework for further discussion. This collaboration is believed that the efficacy of recycling technologies will be facilitated, thereby supporting the global transition towards a carbon-neutral future.

ME & AP Student Team Wins IMechE Best Student Design Award 2023/2024

The PolyU Undergraduate ME & AP Student Team won the Best Student Design Award 2023/2024 organized by the IMechE Hong Kong Branch. The team members are Gong Ziqi from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Zhu Wenjia from the Department of Applied Physics. The winning project is called the "Wave Pillow". Nowadays, with the increase in the number of people suffering from cervical spondylosis, the need for treatment and corrective ergonomics has raised awareness among people and the medical community. There is a strong relationship between the quality of sleep and the incidence of whiplash. A proper pillow plays a crucial role in improving sleep quality. Therefore, this project design incorporates flexible electronic devices and various physical sensors to create smart, wave-shaped pillows that can be applied to different sleeping postures and accommodate people of different genders and ages. The design project was developed from multiple perspectives: Background, Design Concept, Mechanical Element, Innovation Achievement, and Commercial Viability, which comprehensively demonstrated the innovative and implementable nature of the design. The IMechE Hong Kong Branch organizes the annual Best Student Design Award to recognize the contributions to the mechanical industry from student design projects and to appreciate the performance of outstanding mechanical engineering students. The award is given to the design project that has the potential to impact the mechanical engineering industry, exhibits technical excellence in the field of mechanical engineering, demonstrates innovation, and shows commercial viability.

ME Final Year Project wins Championship of HKIE Best Final-Year Environmental Project 2024

Congratulations to our team of three 2024 graduates of BEng (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering for receiving the Champion of 2023/2024 Best Final-Year Environmental Project Award (Group Stream) hosted by the Environmental Division of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE) for their final year project entitled “Design of a Desalination System Using Low-grade Waste Heat for Hong Kong”. The team, consisting of Chong Man Kuen, Ko Wai Kai, and Leung Wing Wai, was supervised by Dr LI Mengying. This award aims to recognize the efforts of final-year students in completing good quality final year projects and to encourage them to continue the effort in improving the environmental engineering practice in their future careers.

ME PhD Student shines in the 2024 Asian Rowing Cup

We are proud to share that Miss ZHANG Kouer, a PhD student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has achieved a remarkable accomplishment by winning the Bronze Medal in the Women's Pair event at the prestigious Asian Rowing Cup competition, held on April 19-21, 2024 in Chungju, Korea. Kouer is an award-winning rower and an athlete of the Hong Kong Team. She has previously triumphed with a Silver Medal in the Women's Single Scull event at the 2023 U23 Asian Rowing Championships. Additionally, Kouer has been awarded the HKSAR Government Scholarship Fund - Talent Development Scholarship 2024, which recognizes students who have demonstrated outstanding achievements or talent in non-academic areas and provides support for them to further develop their potential. In addition to her impressive athletic achievements, Kouer has also excelled academically. She is currently a PhD student in ME under the supervision of Dr AN Liang. She has recently clinched the Champion and People's Choice Awards in the Faculty 3MT (Three-Minute Thesis) Competition. Read More: ME PhD students clinch Top Awards in Faculty 3MT Competition

ME received 3 accolades at 49th International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva

Impactful innovations from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) won a record-breaking number of accolades at the 49th International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva (Geneva Inventions Expo), a widely recognised annual event devoted exclusively to invention. The Department is pleased to have three innovations seized two Silver Medals and one Bronze Medal. This achievement underscores the commitment of the ME community, encompassing scholar, student and alumnus, to embracing research breakthroughs.   Silver Medal .color-button { background-color: #C0c0c0; color: white; transition: background-color 0.3s; transform: skew(-30deg); } .text_format { display: inline-block; transform: skew(30deg); } .color-button2 { background-color: #CD7F32; color: white; transition: background-color 0.3s; transform: skew(-30deg); } Smart Headset featuring Adaptive Noise Filters for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder Principle Investigator: Dr CHOY Yat Sze Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering Project description: This innovative smart headset creates a personalised adaptive noise filter for users with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The noise filter is based on the unique aural perception response of each user, reducing irritating noise without interfering with normal everyday sounds such as speech. This makes the sound perceived by the user more comfortable, helping alleviate negative behaviour triggered by intolerable sound stimuli. The smart headset works with a mobile application that quickly assesses the aural perception response of each user and creates a unique noise filter. The smart headset is a significant technological breakthrough that could transform the lives of individuals with ASD by making their daily experiences more manageable and enjoyable. It also enhances their communication, education, and social lives. It benefits both the users and their families by improving their quality of life. Silver Medal ZC-01 Automatic Washroom Cleaning Robot Principle Investigator: Mr LEE Tsz Chung Curry MSc in ME Graduate, Department of Mechanical Engineering Founder, ZeeqClean Technology Limited (a PolyU start-up) Project description: The ZC-01™ is a commercial toilet cleaning robot that operates either manually or automatically. It uses non-visual LiDAR and infrared sensors for adaptive cruise, and can clean toilets and urinals in a contactless way, with drying and UV sterilisation functions. Before cleaning, the ZC-01™ can detect and open the toilet lid. The ZC-01™ can reduce the cost of commercial cleaning and help industry become more environmentally-friendly by recording energy and chemical consumption. Most importantly, ZC-01™ can reduce work aversion in commercial washroom cleaning. The target market of the ZC-01™ is Hong Kong's commercial buildings, government buildings, large public toilets, international airport, and its international conference venue AsiaWorld-Expo, as well as large highway rest areas in the Mainland – all places that require a large amount of cleaning. Bronze Medal Thick Glassy Carbon Manufacturing and Physical Property Adjustment through Heat Treatment Principle Investigator: Mr YANG Yi, PhD Student, Department of Mechanical Engineering Founder, Discarbonery Technology Limited (a PolyU start-up) Project description: Glassy carbon is a carbon material that does not form graphite crystals, and has excellent physical and chemical properties. It can be used in various applications such as glass moulding and the semiconductor industry. However, this material has a number of challenges – such as size limitations, high preparation costs, and high hardness – that make it difficult to process directly. To overcome these challenges, we have developed a way to produce large, cost-effective, shape-controlled glassy carbon products, and a way to use heat treatment to subsequently adjust their physical properties. These strategies enable us to fine-tune the properties of glassy carbon to suit different applications and extend product lifespan.

ME surges in Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings by Subject 2024

In the latest Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings by Subject 2024 released on 10 April 2024, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has attained remarkable success, ranking within the top 20 globally for five subjects and the first in Hong Kong for four subjects. Several engineering and technology-related fields also placed in the top 100 worldwide. We are very pleased to see that PolyU’s Mechanical Engineering subject has surged from 120th to 73rd. The QS World University Rankings by Subject evaluated institutions across 54 subjects in five broad subject areas. The subject rankings are weighted based on academic reputation, employer reputation, research citations per paper, the H-index and international research network.  The Department will refer to the rankings and other assessments to strive for improvement and lead ME to a new horizon. Our Performance in Key Rank League Tables .color-button { background-color: #A02337; color: white; transition: background-color 0.3s; } .color-button:hover { background-color: white; color: #A02337; }  

ME Student Team won the 3rd Runner-up in ASMEHK-CityU Student Design Competition 2024

A team of Mechanical Engineering (ME) students won the 3rd Runner-up in the 2024 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Hong Kong Section Student Design Competition, held on 23 March 2024. “Harvesting Energy from the Sun and Wind”, the theme of this year, is to challenge students to collect renewable solar and/or wind energy and move weights around a game surface. Each team was required to design and build a remotely controlled vehicle that could harvest renewable solar and/or wind energy for mechanical and transportation purposes. The ME team is comprised of five final-year undergraduate students, LIANG Jinchi, QIU Liuming, ZHANG Zhewei, ZHANG Ziqi and ZHAO Zhen, under the supervision of Dr Henry CHU of the ME. ASMEHK-CityU Student Design Competition 2024 was held in City University of Hong Kong, total six teams were participated, including two teams from CUHK, two teams from HKIVE, one team each from HKU and HKPolyU.

2 ME Scholars recognised amongst world’s most highly cited researchers 2023

Congratulations to Prof. WANG Zuankai and Dr ZHANG Xiao being two of the 15 PolyU academics who have been recognised in the "Highly Cited Researchers 2023" list by Clarivate Analytics. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and Clarivate Plc (Clarivate) jointly hosted the “2023 Highly Cited Researchers Awards Ceremony” on 15 March 2024. Officiated by PolyU Vice President (Research and Innovation), Prof. Christopher CHAO, and Clarivate™ Vice President for Asia Pacific (Academia and Government), Mr Osher GILINSKY, the Ceremony recognised PolyU academics who have been named as Highly Cited Researchers™ in 2023, the significant impact of their research and the positive contributions they have made in their field. A total of 6,849 researchers from 67 countries and regions from a diverse range of research fields were named as Highly Cited Researchers 2023. The most influential scholars from around the world have been identified, determined by the production of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in the Web of Science™ over the last 11 years. The inclusion of PolyU academics in this list is testament to the University’s pursuit of research excellence. In the last year, PolyU had the third highest number of the world’s most Highly Cited Researchers in Hong Kong, including ten awardees in cross-field research, two from engineering disciplines, and one from chemistry, computer science and the social sciences respectively. The department is proud of Prof. Wang and Dr Zhang’s outstanding achievements in ground-breaking research. Their accomplishments reaffirm ME’s dedication to research excellence.  

Joint School Sharing Forum: Exploring the Role of Mechanical Engineers

On February 22, 2024, the Caritas School Social Work Service and the PolyU Department of Mechanical Engineering joined forces to organize a school visit and a joint school sharing forum at Tuen Mun Catholic Secondary School. We were delighted to spend an afternoon engaging with the principal, vice principal, teachers, and students, learning about their studies and aspirations. The joint school sharing forum welcomed approximately 150 Form 5 students from Pope Paul VI College and Tuen Mun Catholic Secondary School. We extend our gratitude to our esteemed industrial partner, REC Engineering Co. Ltd., for their enthusiastic support. Ir Antonio Chan, the Deputy Managing Director, played a pivotal role in facilitating the collaboration between Caritas and the Department. The forum commenced with Antonio's insightful discussion on the practical needs of the workplace. Subsequently, the Caritas School Social Work Service hosted an interactive quiz game, where students eagerly sought answers to general engineering questions. Next, our Department Head, Prof. Su Zhongqing, provided an in-depth explanation of the research areas and modern applications of mechanical engineering. Following Prof. Su's presentation, student and graduate representatives shared their personal experiences in both studying and working in the field. Mr Jeffrey KIM Jaeyoun, a Year 4 student pursuing a BEng (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering, captivated the audience with his account of the wonderful experiences gained from the PolyU E-Formula Racing Team's involvement in Formula One races. Additionally, Mr Adrian WU, a 2018 graduate of the BEng (Hons) in Product Analysis and Engineering Design programme, currently serves as a Product Manager in Asia Pacific at BELIMO Asia Pacific Limited. He shed light on how his work directly impacts everyone's lives. Following the sharing sessions, Dr Henry Chu, the Scheme Leader of the BEng (Hons) Scheme in Mechanical Engineering, invited students to explore the study of mechanical engineering at PolyU. He specifically highlighted the new Intelligent Robotics Engineering programme and the recently established DSE Entry Scholarship. The event concluded with an open forum, chaired by Dr Tracy Choy, the Chairlady of the Publicity Committee, accompanied by Dr Chu, Jeffrey, and Adrian. During this session, students posed thoughtful questions to gain a better understanding of the engineering industry and to prepare for their personal development. To further enrich the visit, the ME delegation explored the school's workshop, gaining insights into the students' design and engineering projects. This visit proved to be highly fruitful, deepening mutual understanding and providing students with first-hand information to guide them in their future studies and career choices. Overall, the Joint School Sharing Forum proved to be an invaluable opportunity for students to explore the multifaceted world of mechanical engineering, empowering them to make informed decisions about their academic and professional paths.  

ME Undergraduate receives the Best URIS Research Project Award 2023

Congratulations to our undergraduate, Mr HE Zhengyang, on receiving the Grand Award in the Best URIS Research Project Award 2023. Under the supervision of Dr TANG Hui, Associate Professor of ME, Mr HE has demonstrated distinctive research achievements through his project which contributed to harvesting energy from flowing water with a unique flapping-foil-based hydropower harvester. This award also symbolises the recognition of his endeavour to advance knowledge with applications.   Grand Award Project Title: Development of a New Generation of Flow Energy Harvester Awardee: HE Zhengyang, BEng (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering Chief Supervisor: Dr Tang Hui, Department of Mechanical Engineering Abstract: The URIS project achieved a breakthrough in harvesting energy from flowing water with a unique flapping-foil-based hydropower harvester. Unlike traditional turbine-based technologies, this harvester brings several advantages, such as lower cut-in speeds, slower tip speeds, better-filling factors, and scalability. To convert water flow into electricity, a hybrid power-take-off unit combining triboelectricity and electromagnetic induction was designed, developed, and tested. Through extensive water-tunnel experiments, the unit was optimized for different water speeds and foil movements. The flapping-foil technology operates at lower tip speeds, making it environmentally friendly for energy harvesting in rivers and oceans. Its applications also include charging low-power devices and measuring water speed simultaneously, especially in remote off-grid areas. This innovation opens up new possibilities for harnessing renewable energy from water sources and providing sustainable power solutions in various settings. The Undergraduate Research and Innovation Scheme (URIS) is a prestigious programme of PolyU to promote undergraduate research with the aim to nurture the next generation of intellectuals. The programme offers an enquiry-based learning opportunity to empower PolyU Ug students to build research track records, establish research networks, gain exposure to their fields of study and equip themselves with competencies to take up research career opportunities in Hong Kong and beyond. It is great to see the undergraduate from the Department being acclaimed for his research innovation.