Zhiliang Chen

Research Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research Focus

Research interests include long-term leaching and aging assessment of cementitious waste forms, geochemical assessment of coal fly ashes, detoxification and utilization of municipal solid waste incineration residues, formation and suppression of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) in municipal solid waste incineration systems, and carbon capture and utilization in solid wastes.

Biography

Zhiliang Chen is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Vanderbilt University. He received his Ph.D. in Engineering Thermophysics from the Zhejiang University of China in 2019. His research interests mainly focus on environmental risk assessment and management of solid wastes, leaching assessment and modeling, organic contaminants abatement, and carbon capture and utilization.
His is currently working on the project of Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP) supported by the Department of Energy to develop risk assessment models for the management and cleanup of low-activity waste. The research develops a series of leaching and aging models based on laboratory experiments and analyses, to provide in-depth understanding of the mechanisms controlling the chemical speciation and transport rates of contaminants and to more accurately estimate the release of contaminants from grout waste forms under field conditions.