Mengtai group was founded in 1991 by professor Yanmo Chen, a fiber material expert (a visiting Scholar of the University of Massachusetts, and a Shanghai Science and Technology Elite).Meifang  Zhu graduated with a master's degree in 1989 and worked in the school, assisted Yanmo Chen and Yu Zhang to start the research on the physical mechanism of fining, high-speed, colored and dyeing preparation of polypropylene (PP) fibers and the new processing methods and technologies, undertaken a series of national and local major projects, such as the first national demonstration project of industry-university-research high-tech industrialization, implemented successfully the industrialization of fine polypropylene fiber (named Meng Tai fiber). Therefore, the research group was named Mengtai research group, focusing on the research of fiber material molding. From 1997 to 1999, selected by the Ministry of Education and the State Key Laboratory of Fiber Materials Modification, Meifang Zhu went to Dresden University of Technology in Germany for a Ph.D. (co-cultivation), specializing in the preparation of organic nanomaterials and the structural design and synthesis of organic/inorganic nanomaterials.

After 2001, the scale and research direction of the research group gradually expanded and extended, with the old leading the new, gradually transferred to professor Meifang Zhu and professor Yanmo Chen as the academic leaders of the research group. Selected young cadre teachers such as Bin Sun, Hao Yu and Long Chen went to the United States (Acron University), Germany (Dresden University of Technology), Japan (Kyoto Fiber Industry University) and other well-known foreign universities to study, and has successively introduced Dr.Zongyi Qin  (postdoctoral fellow at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), Dr.Xuefen Wang (postdoctoral fellow at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Germany Humboldt Scholar), Dr. Xiaoze Jiang (postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota) and Dr.Shengyuan Yang (PhD, National University of Singapore), further improve the research level of the team in basic polymer science and polymer fiber molding theory.

Through the combination of introduction and cultivation, an innovative team with the interdisciplinary background, basic research and application development led by Professor Meifang Zhu was formed. It was selected into the Innovation Team of the Ministry of Education (2012) and the first batch of university knowledge service pilot teams in Shanghai. (2010). At present, there are 16 teachers in the research group, including 7 professors, 5 associate professors, 4 lecturers, including 1 Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences，1 National Outstanding Youth Fund winner, 1 Changjiang Scholar Distinguished Professor, and 2 New (Trans) Century Excellent Talents in the Ministry of Education. 2 Shanghai Science and Technology Elites, 1 Shanghai Pujiang Talent, 1 Humboldt Scholar, etc.