Editor's Note: Behind every major industrial breakthrough is a place where ideas become reality. Future, Made Here takes readers inside Chongqing's four flagship laboratories to explore how advances in AI, biomedicine, advanced materials, and green technologies are powering the city's manufacturing upgrade and shaping the future of innovation in western China.

The Three Gorges Laboratory is located in Liangjiang New Area, Chongqing. (Photo/Three Gorges Laboratory)

Chongqing – With the Three Gorges Laboratory launched in July, Chongqing has completed its four-laboratory innovation platform, alongside the Jinfeng, Jialingjiang and Mingyue Lake laboratories, to advance frontier research and foster industries of the future.

From protecting rivers and lakes to developing low-carbon technologies, the Three Gorges Laboratory is putting green innovation at the heart of regional development. 

Over the next five to ten years, it aims to become a world-class research hub, incubate 20 to 30 technology companies, and generate more than 30 billion yuan (about 4.42 billion U.S. dollars) in added economic output.

The laboratory has already established 15 research platforms covering biodiversity, intelligent chemical engineering, digital-intelligent carbon neutrality, and intelligent environmental equipment, among other fields.

A researcher adjusts a water-quality monitoring device at the Three Gorges Laboratory. (Photo/Chongqing Daily)

A water-treatment solution developed by the laboratory is put into use. (Photo/Chongqing TV)

One of the laboratory's early breakthroughs is a new method for removing nitrogen from municipal wastewater. 

Nitrogen, mainly in the form of ammonia, is a difficult pollutant to treat. The conventional nitrification-denitrification process requires multiple steps and high energy consumption, making it less suitable for long-term low-carbon goals.

The laboratory's one-step microbial process directly converts ammonia into harmless nitrogen gas. According to the laboratory, the technology cuts nitrogen removal costs by about 50%, significantly improves efficiency, and produces treated water that exceeds national quality standards.

Lei Yu, an associate researcher at the Chongqing Institute of Green and Intelligent Technology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CIGIT), said the breakthrough was made possible by the city’s long-term support for fundamental research, allowing the team to pursue the technology over many years.

The laboratory also builds on CIGIT's years of expertise in green and low-carbon technologies.

For example, CIGIT's team was the first to map, on a national scale, the spatial patterns and changes of water-level fluctuation zones in large reservoirs, helping Chongqing enact China's first government regulation on reservoir zone management. 

The team also developed a life-cycle carbon-flux model for large reservoirs, which has been adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

These achievements provide a strong foundation for the laboratory's future work, helping bridge the gap between scientific research and practical applications. Moving forward, the laboratory will advance technologies that directly support the construction of the ecological barrier along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.

Director Wang Hualin said: "Within three to five years, we aim to build a world-class green and low-carbon laboratory and work toward establishing a national technological innovation center for resource recycling in the upper Yangtze region, generating over 100 billion yuan in additional industrial value."

The inauguration of the Three Gorges Laboratory and the signing of a cooperation agreement take place on July 2. (Photo/Southwest University)

The Three Gorges Laboratory brings together more than 230 researchers, including over 20 nationally recognized experts, among them recipients of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars and members of the Changjiang Scholars Program.

Spearheaded by academician Wang Hualin of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the laboratory brings together research resources from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, East China University of Science and Technology, Chongqing University, and Southwest University, as well as industry partners including China Three Gorges Corporation, China Railway Construction Corporation, Sinopec, and Sinomach.