Chenglong Lu

From: The University of Queensland

Chenglong Lu is a postdoctoral researcher in the SOMER Group. He received his master’s degree in mining engineering from Central South University and his PhD from The University of Queensland, where he worked on sustainable ecological rehabilitation of mine tailings. His research background spans mineral processing, resource recovery, environmental functional materials, and tailing rehabilitation, with a long-term interest in mineral phase transformation, interfacial reactions, and the resource-environment effects of mining solid wastes.

His research centers on how mineral transformation drives resource utilization and ecological rehabilitation. He focuses on key processes including mineral dissolution, weathering, polymerization, precipitation, and amorphous phase formation, and examines how mineral structural evolution regulates resource recovery, contaminant immobilization, organic carbon stabilization, and ecosystem reconstruction.

During his doctoral research, he used highly alkaline bauxite residue as a model mining waste to study plant-driven mineral weathering, secondary mineral formation, and ecological rehabilitation. By integrating mineralogical, geochemical, synchrotron-based, XRD/Rietveld, TEM, and Orbitrap-MS approaches, he developed a multiscale framework linking rhizosphere processes, mineral transformation, and organic matter stabilization. His work shows that pioneer plant rhizosphere processes can progressively weaken the alkaline buffering system of bauxite residue, promote weathering of DSP-type alkaline minerals, and induce nanoscale secondary amorphous Al-Si-Fe phases. Organic inputs and low-molecular-weight organic acids further participate in mineral structural reorganization and interfacial association, supporting the transformation of bauxite residue from a highly alkaline industrial waste into a Technosol-like substrate.

His earlier work also covered mining waste valorization and environmental functional materials, including valuable metal recovery and enrichment, tailing-based slow-release sulfidation materials, selective copper-arsenic separation, defluorination materials, and treatment of high-fluoride and organic wastewaters. Together, these studies form a continuous research line from resource recovery to environmental remediation.

In SOMER, he further focuses on secondary mineral formation and turnover, mineral-organic interface processes, and their environmental effects during tailing and waste rock ecological rehabilitation. His current work examines how minerals, biota, and organic matter are coupled during pedogenesis of mine-degraded lands, with an emphasis on the linked mechanisms of secondary mineral formation, organic carbon retention, and contaminant stabilization.

Selected studies include work on organic acid-driven weathering of bauxite residue, haloalkalitolerant plant-driven dealkalization, long-term soil cover effects on Fe ore tailings, segmental defluorination from zinc sulfate electrowinning solution, phase-regulated colloidal FeS for copper-arsenic separation, AI-optimized slow-release iron sulfide for acidic wastewater treatment, and micro-electrolysis composite materials derived from alkaline bauxite residue.