Dr. Yi Du

Yi Du is a postdoctoral researcher at the Chair of Sustainable Construction. He earned a bachelor's and master's degree in materials science and engineering from Hohai University, China (2015) and Southeast University, China (2018) respectively. During the bachelor's, he had an eight-month internship at State Key Laboratory of High Performance Civil Engineering Materials and finished the bachelor thesis there. Then he continued his master in the building materials field, specializing in nano-modified foamed concrete and ultra-high-performance concrete. In 2023, he obtained his doctoral degree from ETH Zurich, with thesis titled ‘A New Low Carbon Clay Based Concrete with Improved Water Resistance’. During his doctoral studies, he was also partly involved in the project of industrial hemp as regenerative building material, mainly focusing on the hemp-biochar-earth plaster. 

His postdoctoral research focuses on developing additives, in collaboration with Empa, to control the shrinkage of earth materials. Besides, he is also working on formulating new types of clay dispersants used for poured earth application and leading one partnership project funded by Leading House Asia for realizing regenerative materials utilization in rural China.