#researchwithoutboundaries

Nathan Nan XU, PhD Candidate from Individualized Interdisciplinary Program, won the Second Place together with his team at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Technologies for Sustainability (SusTech) Conference Student Poster Contest held on 21 April 2022. A total of eleven posters were presented online. The research topic they presented was “Smart Tracking Tray System for A Smart and Sustainable Wet Lab Community”, which is part of the HKUST Sustainable Smart Campus (SSC) As Living Lab project outcome.

Nathan and his team proposed an interdisciplinary and user-friendly chemical inventory management system to solve the issues of labor-intensive chemical inventory management approaches , such as chemical waste due to poor information sharing, inefficient search of chemicals, and unsatisfied lab safety requirements. Empowered by RFID, multiple sensor integration, and blockchain technologies, the digital trace of the chemical containers and sensitive/dangerous substances can be seamlessly managed in a closed loop at each stage. They tested their system at several HKUST labs and proved that  it could bring great convenience for lab users while efficiently improving research, administration, management, and safety control. In the long run, they believe the system will play an essential role in promoting the efficient use of lab resources and achieving the goal of sustainable labs.

Nathan said that it was a fantastic journey to initiate the idea and to have the team from the Design Thinking Course to polish and expand the project with the support from Sustainable and Smart Campus (SSC) as Living Lab. He would like to sincerely thank his advisors: Prof. Jinglei YANG, Prof. Hongyu YU, Prof. Jishan HU, the Interdiscplinary Programs Office (IPO), his Design Thinking teaching team, WeShare group members, SSC, and Entrepreneurship Center (EC) for their generous endorsements and resources, allowing his team to shine on the worldwide stage.