Contact Dr Ying Jiang

Areas of expertise

  • Biomass and Waste
  • Energy and the Environment
  • Renewable Energy
  • Waste Management and Resource Efficiency

Background

Dr Jiang is a Senior Lecturer in Bioenergy within the Centre for Thermal Energy Systems and Materials (CTEM). He is the Module manager for Principles of Renewable Energy Technologies and the Course Director for MSc Advanced Chemical Engineering. Trained as an Environmental scientist, Dr Jiang has a broad interest in pollution monitoring and control, fate of pollutants in the environment, and clean energy production. His current research focuses on renewable energy production through biological as well as thermochemical processes.

He is an internationally recognized expert on renewable energy production using anaerobic fermentation technology, particularly the involvement of trace element in the enzymatic functions in methanogenesis. His research using C-14 radioactive labelling technique and molecular biology approaches (Pyrosequencing and Florescence in situ hybridisation) revealed a significant methanogenic pathway shift from acetoclastic to hydrogenotrophic under high ammoniacal nitrogen condition. This shift of metabolic pathway explains the higher selenium requirement during anaerobic digestion of high nitrogen feedstock due to a set of selenium-dependent enzymes involved specifically in hydrogenotrophic pathway (Jiang et al. 2017; Jiang et al. 2018).

Additionally, he is currently developing studies integrating renewable energy production with plant based land remediation (phytoremediation) method to achieve low carbon and low-cost remediation (Jiang et al. 2015).

His current research is focusing on:

Energy potential of organic matters and optimization of the overall energy balance of AD process;

Trace element requirements for sustaining efficient AD processes;

Impact of environmental factors, e.g. temperature, pH and ammonia concentration to methanogen population and methanogenesis pathways;

Fate of heavy metal elements in biomass during thermochemical processes;

Economic and feasibility analysis of biomass production from contaminated and non-agriculture land

Before joining Cranfield, Ying completed a number of high profile projects including:

WRAP funded project reviewing the process efficiency of over 30 UK anaerobic renewable energy plants

EU FP7 funded project ('VALORGAS', Valorisation of Food Waste to Biogas).

Current activities

Currently Ying is managing the delivery of a number of national and international collaborative research projects, exploring the potential of using phytoremediation for the cleaning up of metal contaminated land and the subsequent energy recovery from plant biomass. As an investigator on the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge: Nano-membrane Toilet (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation), he is leading a research team contributing to achieving the energy sustainability and system integration of the membrane toilet system.

In addition to his significant research role, he provides administrative support to MSc courses. He is the Module manager for a number of MSc level taught modules and the Course Director for MSc Advanced Chemical Engineering. In addition, he leads the marketing and strategic collaboration of the Energy and Power Doctoral Training Programme in Cranfield University.

Dr Jiang is a reviewer for BBSRC standard grant and was invited by the Welsh government to review Welsh Government's Sêr Cymru II Programme. He is a reviewer for a number of peer-reviewed journals including Science of the Total Environment, Biomass and Bioenergy and Waste Management.

Clients

EU FP 7 - 'Valorgas': Valorisation of Food Waste to Biogas

WRAP - Review of the application of the Residual Biogas Potential test

EPSRC - 'Cleaning Land for Wealth' (CL4W)

EPSRC SUPERGEN Bioenergy Hub

Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) - SP1011

British Council - Newton Fund

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Reinvent the Toilet Challenge

Publications

Articles In Journals

Conference Papers

Books