Dr. Xiong Boya, Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Civil Geosciences and Engineering at the University of Minnesota, was invited to our school to give an academic talk titled “Polyacrylamide degradation during hydraulic fracturing in the deep subsurface: implications to wastewater quality and membrane treatment” on November 27^th. More than 20 teachers and students from School of Resources and Environmental Engineering attended the meeting.

In the talk, Dr. Xiong mainly introduced the emerging environmental issues during the shale gas revolution in the United States, including the treatment and environmental risks of hydraulic fracturing produced waters, metabolism and environmental ecological effects of oil recovery polymer additives under the conditions of near shallow surface geological environment and mechanical shear, which is valuable for current study of microplastic pollution. In the Q&A session, the participating teachers and students actively asked questions and conducted in-depth discussions on issues of common concern such as the development of Sino-US environmental disciplines. After the report, Dr. Xiong also visited the State Key Laboratory of Environmental Risk Assessment and Control of Chemical Processes and the State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering.

Note: Dr. Boya Xiong was graduated from the School of Biology of East China University of Science and Technology in 2011. From 2011 to 2018, she studied in the College of Civil and Environmental Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. In 2018, she was engaged in postdoctoral research in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2019, she was employed as a assistant professor in Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering at the University of Minnesota.