In addition, Li Aimin is the head of the Huaihe River Project, a major national water conservancy project in the Twelfth Five-Year Plan and the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan, and has been engaged in theoretical and technical research on sewage/wastewater treatment and recycling for a long time. Since the 11th Five-Year Plan, in view of the outstanding problems of Huaihe River in China, such as water shortage, frequent water pollution accidents and habitat destruction, key core technologies such as chemical wastewater treatment and attenuation, regional wastewater recycling and safe utilization, ecological treatment and healthy restoration of polluted rivers have been developed, which provide important scientific and technological support for water environment treatment and ecological restoration in key river basins such as Huaihe River in China. As the technical director, he handled four major sudden water pollution accidents, which was affirmed by Jiangsu Provincial Environmental Protection Department and Ministry of Ecology and Environment. He founded the Yangtze River Ecological Civilization Innovation Center, Yancheng Institute of Environmental Protection Technology and Engineering of Nanjing University, Nanjing Environmental Protection Industry Innovation Center and other scientific and technological platforms, and established six high-tech enterprises by using the developed technologies.
Li Aimin has successively won two second prizes for national scientific and technological progress (ranking 1), national technological invention award 1 (ranking 2) and the first national innovation award 1. Authorized invention patents 185 in China (three of which won the China Patent Excellence Award), and 26 foreign patents in the United States and the European Union won the Jiangsu Technical Inventor Award. He has published nearly 400 SCI papers, and is a cited scientist of Crewe Safety Ball. He has been shortlisted for six consecutive years in the list of cited scholars of Elsevier China. He was selected as the first batch of leading talents in the national "Ten Thousand Talents Program" (20 13) special support program, including Changjiang scholar distinguished professor (2009), winner of the National Outstanding Youth Fund (2008), first-class young and middle-aged chief scientist of "333 High-level Talents Training Project" in Jiangsu Province, and "Top Ten" technological inventors in Jiangsu Province.