RESEARCH

The Institute of Food Engineering was established in 1998 to adapt to the ambitious objectives of Zhejiang University to become one of the first class research universities. The Institute is based on the academic staff and research facilities of the Department of Food Science and Nutrition. The Institute has 5 professors and 6 associate professors. 

The Institute enrolls about 10 master students and 10 Ph D students every year, and they are important force in the research and development undertakings of the Institute.

In recent years, the institute re-directed its research priority to quality and safety assurance of agricultural produce, long distance cold container transportation of exporting fruit and vegetables, minimally processed vegetables, on-line fast analysis of milk composition, cold chain technology and equipment for domestic markets etc, to meet the changing demands resulted from the development of commercial and exporting oriented agriculture and progress of domestic consumer market. This re-direction has produced quite positive response from the industry sector. Many research results have been adopted by the industry and generated good social-economic benefits.

Institute of Food Science was established based on the academic staff and research facilities of the Department of Food Science and Nutrition. The institute has 15 experts including 8 full professors and 7 associate professors.

The institute is focused on the fields including the application of food nutrition and health, molecular biology and fermentation engineering and cell engineering in the storage and processing of farm products as well as the fermented production of bioactive compounds, and the application of biotechnology in the determination of harmful compositions in food, which produces a series of important achievements both in theory and in practice several of which producing major effects on these fields in nation. Besides the above areas, we also have important research results on the following areas: enzyme engineering and protein engineering both in theory and in practice, the application of molecular biology in microorganism breeding, the application of biotechnology in the determination of harmful compositions in food, the exploitation of novel microbiological products, the use of microorganism in harmful biological control in post harvest, the relationship between food nutrition and non-communicable diseases, the development of functional and novel food, the extraction, isolation and identification of functional compounds in food as well as the study of their biological activity, fast determination technology and so on, especially in the areas including functional fat and its metabolism and effect on cardiovascular system as well as its mechanism, the study and development of polypeptide which has biological activity and its effect on chronic diseases.

We are willing to offer exploiting programs of agriculture products, factory design, technology renovation, the construction of quality management system, the development of new product and new processing, staff training, the detection of product quality and solving technological problems for local governments and companies.

The Institute of Agricultural Bio-Environmental Engineering (IABE) was founded in 1988, relying on the discipline of agriculture bio-environmental engineering. It was authorized to offer doctoral program in 1996 and to build the post-doctoral station in 2000. The experimental base of the IABE was named as the Key Open Laboratory for Eco-agricultural Environment Engineering of Agricultural Ministry of China in 1996. It passed the evaluation of Agricultural Ministry and was awarded one of 17 national outstanding key open laboratories in 2002.

The IABE currently has 14 faculty members, including 8 professors, 7 associate professors. all of them have the doctoral degree. There are 7 doctoral candidates and more than 10 master candidates now in the institute and more than 30 doctorates and 100 masters have been granted.

The IABE mainly focus on the mutual action mechanism between the growth of the crops, livestock & poultry, special aquiculture, agricultural microorganism and the ecological environment. With this foundation and the application of the ecological principle, the institute undertakes the following researches: the eco-environmental regulation and control of the animal, plant, microorganism in the surrounding protection facility; the eco-environmental regulation and control of the nutritional source recirculation of the animal and plant integrated cultivation, and the complete set integration of the surrounding protection facilities.

Main Research Fields:

  1. Plant eco-environmental engineering.

  2. Livestock and poultry eco-environmental engineering.

  3. Aquiculture eco-environmental engineering.

  4. Building environment and energy efficiency in buildings .

  5. Large-scale solar energy utilization in buildings.

  6. Agricultural waste resources and microorganism eco-environmental engineering.

  7. Ecological agriculture environmental measurement and control technology.

Institute of Intelligent Agricultural Equipment was founded in 1994. Up to date, it has established several advanced research laboratories, including Computer Vision and Bio-imaging, Spectral Analysis for Quality of Argo-products, Biosensors and Nanotechnology, Intelligent Controlling Technique of Bio-industrial Equipment, Intelligent Bio-industrial Equipment and Robots, Agricultural Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. The institute has been undertaking a number of prestigious national-level research projects.

The Institute of  Agricultural Information Technology of Zhejiang University was established in 2003. It originated from Agricultural Mechanization and Electrization Teaching and Research lab at College of Agricultural Engineering in Zhejiang University. 
Agricultural Information Technology is an engineering research field based on biological science. It integrates theories of biology, physic, chemistry, mathematics and engineering scientific technology, and uses biosystem and correlative environment, equipment and engineering facility as the research objects. The aim of this area is to study information technology related to biosystems engineering equipment automation technology, and solve engineering problems related to biosystem, improve the biological produce technology, environment of biology growing, quality of human survival. It also provides advanced engineering technology and equipment to biology produce and reasonable utilization of biological resource.

This institute currently has 12 faculties with 7 professors and 5 associate professors.

Research fields:

  Precision agriculture and digital agriculture

  Agricultural electrization and Automation

  Intelligent agricultural sensor and measurement device

  Renewable energy-- Biogas,Biofuel

  Agricultural information acquisition technology

  Intelligent control system of agricultural machinery

  Detecting technology and equipment of agricultural quality and safe automation

  Automation of facility agriculture.

  Information of agricultural biological environment.