A continued reliance on fossil fuels for energy production is not sustainable, particularly as energy demand continues to rise in parallel to the industrialization of developing countries and world population growth. Not only does reliance on the combustion of fossil fuels result in greenhouse gas emissions detrimental to the environment, it also creates energy security challenges given that oil, coal, and natural gas are geographically concentrated and subject to volatile prices.��
Imagine being able to use noxious Hydrogen sulphide (H2S), a waste material widely found in the UAE oil and gas industry, to generate energy in a clean, sustainable way. A recent Khalifa University PhD graduate, advised by Dr. Giovanni Palmisano and co-advised by Dr. Khalid Al-Ali, investigated this question, researching the best way to produce hydrogen from hydrogen sulphide. By freeing hydrogen—a zero-emissions fuel source—from hydrogen sulphide, the toxic gas becomes harmless and the liberated hydrogen can be used in fuel cells or power plants to generate clean electricity.
But separating hydrogen is not easy—it requires a lot of energy and expensive materials. Existing separation techniques that use catalysts are expensive and limited. Many face challenges with the catalysts’ tendency to become deactivated, rendering the catalyst unable to carry out the required reactions.��
The PhD graduate Habeebllah Oladipo, developed a model to predict the deactivation of a titanium dioxide catalyst and to select the proper operational conditions to avoid this. Oladipo successfully defended his thesis earlier this month and saw his work published in the journal Applied Catalysis B: Environmental.��
“The current dependence on fossil fuel has led to a huge increase in greenhouse gas emissions,” explained Oladipo. “With the projected increase in world energy demand, alternative energy sources need to be found. Sustainable hydrogen production could be an ideal replacement thanks to its high energy value and environmentally friendly by-products from combustion or use in fuel cells.”
Significant research into powering the world with hydrogen is underway. In particular, research into photocatalysis, a process that involves accelerating a chemical reaction using a zap of light and a catalyst, is being conducted to find the most efficient way to split hydrogen from compounds like water and hydrogen sulphide. In a typical photocatalytic process, a semiconductor-based photocatalyst is irradiated with a specific wavelength of light with energy greater than its bandgap energy, and electrons and holes are generated, triggering a redox reaction – the reaction that liberates hydrogen.
Practical applications of photocatalysis were made possible through the discovery of water electrolysis (the splitting of water) by means of titanium dioxide (TiO2). TiO2 is a highly-stable and non-toxic metal oxide, and can be used in electrochemical photolysis of water when connected with platinum electrodes. Ultraviolet light is absorbed by the former, with electrons migrating from the TiO2 conduction band to the platinum cathode, with hydrogen production occurring at the cathode.��
“Compared to other photocatalysts, TiO2 offers a great range of benefits, such as chemical inertness, photostability, cost-effectiveness, and ease of preparation,” explained Oladipo.
TiO2 photocatalysts produce hydrogen cleanly and efficiently, as an alternative to hydrogen production from natural gas reforming and gasification. This process can be made even more efficient, however, by incorporating a noble metal to increase photoactivity.��
“The quick recombination of the photogenerated carriers poses a challenge for hydrogen generation,” explained Oladipo. “One technique to circumvent this is to decorate titanium dioxide with noble metal nanoparticles such as platinum and gold. Firstly, noble metals drive electrons away from holes by serving as an electron sink, thus minimizing electron-hole recombination. Secondly, they create Schottky barriers, enabling the efficient trapping of the photogenerated electrons available for the reduction of photo-adsorbed reactants to hydrogen.”
“The most common technique employed in the industry for hydrogen sulphide removal from a natural gas stream is scrubbing with an alkaline solution,” explained Oladipo. “My research studied the photocatalytic production of hydrogen following the absorption of hydrogen sulphide in sodium hydroxide aqueous solutions.”
Oladipo’s research showed that under certain reaction conditions, photocatalytic hydrogen generation from hydrogen sulphide can be run consistently without significant loss of activity when using a novel platinum-decorated catalyst layered with TiO2. The results showed that hydrogen production increased linearly with the concentration of bisulfide ionic species until it reached a critical value, after which it declined to negligible levels. This was found to be caused by competition for active site between sulphide and bisulfide ions. Furthermore, reusing the catalyst means this process is more sustainable than previous methods.��
Multiple tests were conducted, with the research concluding that the reaction mechanism primarily involves sulphide ions, which will allow for further optimization of reaction conditions and the future development of pilot reactors for the photocatalytic production of hydrogen from hydrogen sulphide gas.�� 
Jade Sterling
News and Features Writer
5 May 2020

The post From Unsustainable to Sustainable: Turning a Harmful By-product of Fossil Fuels into Clean Energy appeared first on Khalifa University.

A senior design project from students in Khalifa University’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science is seeing huge success with real commercial application after winning two prestigious competitions. Senior students Abduraouf Hassan, Omar Al Mansoori and Omar Al Khoori developed a blockchain-powered smart container, called ‘CryptoCargo’, to provide real-time insights and increased transparency throughout the shipment process. Dr. Khaled Salah was their faculty advisor.

CryptoCargo was announced among the 15 winning projects in Zayed University’s Undergraduate Research Conference on Applied Computing 2020 from a total of 168 submitted. It also saw success in Dell Technologies’ Envision the Future Competition, shortlisted among the top 25 projects in the MENA region from a total of 227 projects submitted. CryptoCargo has reached the final stages of the Dell Technologies Competition and the team are looking forward to the next round.

“The CyrptoCargo project tackles the problems stakeholders encounter when damage is caused to their shipments,” explained Hassan. “Our blockchain-powered smart container aims to provide an enhanced supply chain management experience by offering real-time insights and increased transparency throughout the shipment process.”

As a shipment moves through its journey, it is susceptible to damage caused by extreme temperature ranges, humidity levels, light conditions, or passing through radiative environments. For shipments needing a temperature-controlled supply chain, housing sensitive items such as medical products, chemicals, radiative materials, meat or dairy products, for example, it is even more important to ensure the safeguarding and wellbeing of the cargo’s integrity. By continuously monitoring various metrics, stakeholders can be immediately alerted in case any abnormalities are detected. More importantly, all the data collected needs to be securely stored and made available at all times to the user, in a transparent format that eliminates any attempt at collusion, mistrust or data tampering between the involved parties.

“The CryptoCargo container is designed to monitor, track, alert, and securely store data readings pertaining to temperature conditions, container integrity, and position tracking,” explained Hassan. “Refined data is pushed to an always available cloud server, while violations are stored on the blockchain. Users can then access their shipment status from the frontend decentralized apps.

“The real-time monitoring of the shipment paves the way for more efficient shipments and reduces the likelihood of fraud. Storing violations on the blockchain’s immutable ledges provides an irrefutable guarantee of shipment quality, hence ensuring the integrity and resiliency of the data stored. It uncovers the truth of a shipment’s status, eliminates any possibilities of collusion to alter a shipment’s data, and diminishes any possible disputes between stakeholders.”

CryptoCargo is a unique and promising solution that showcases how the Internet of Things, the Cloud, and Blockchain technologies can work in harmony to solve real life challenges.

Jade Sterling
News and Features Writer
29 April 2020

The post SDP Success for Students Aiming to Make Shipping Transparent and Secure appeared first on Khalifa University.

Ahmed AlHantoobi, Aerospace Engineering student, has published his research on Mars’ magnetism in the major journal , which he conducted during his summer experience with the Emirates Mars Mission Research Experience for Undergraduates program.

“Orbital magnetometers and the InSight lander discovered strong crustal magnetic fields in some regions of Mars, despite the lack of a detectable core dynamo,” explained AlHantoobi to a room full of respected and established researchers in their field. “This strong crustal magnetism is unexplained given that previous models of Mars’ ancient core dynamo are of approximate strength to Earth’s current field and would not produce such strong remnant magnetization if Earth-like lithologies are assumed. However, the crust on Mars is more iron-rich than Earth’s crust, which may lead to rocks with significant proportions of magnetic phases such as magnetite, hematite, pyrrhotite, and titanomagnetite.”

The lithology of a rock unit is the description of its physical characteristics to map and investigate areas by correlation between different rock types.

The dynamo theory proposes a mechanism by which a celestial body, such as Earth or Mars, generates a magnetic field, a process through which a rotating, convecting, and electrically conducting fluid can maintain a magnetic field over astronomical time scales. This conductive fluid in a geodynamo, like a planetary body, is liquid iron in the outer core, with the magnetic field induced and maintained by the convection of the liquid iron in the outer core. As the Earth rotates, the Coriolis effect supplies the rotation in the outer core, and it is this rotating fluid that induces the magnetic field.

While Mars lacks a detectable magnetic field of global scale, it boasts a rich spectrum of magnetic fields at smaller spatial scales. On average, the Mars crust is ten times more intensely magnetized than the Earth’s, and theories suggest that the Mars crust acquired this remnant magnetism from its dynamo shutting down for reasons as yet unknown.

“Previous models of Mars’ ancient core dynamo suggest that its strength was similar to that of Earth’s current magnetic field and would not produce such strong magnetic anomalies as seen,” explained AlHantoobi. “We know that Mars contains more iron than Earth when considering proportions, so the presence of very iron-rich rocks isn’t unexpected in the crust.

The Mars Global Surveyor Mission in 1996 provided a wealth of data into Mars’ evolution and the magnetic record of the crust. However, its data was collected from orbit, at great distance from the rocks containing the history of the planet’s magnetism. Until space exploration missions can use surface or aerial magnetometer surveys or even return a piece of Noachian crust (from an early time period on Mars) to Earth, researchers like AlHantoobi are using the data they already have to propose explanations for the remnant magnetism.

“The data from the magnetometer shows that there are magnetic anomalies on the Martian crust in the absence of a global magnetic field,” said AlHantoobi. “The magnetic field recorded from orbit is suggested to be a result of rocks containing magnetic minerals acquiring remnant magnetization from the time Mars presumably had a global magnetic field. The most likely cause of this remnant magnetization is thermoremanent magnetization.”

When an igneous rock, formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava, cools, it acquires a thermoremanent magnetization (TRM) from the Earth’s field. This remanence can be very stable and last without significant change for millions of years. If a rock is heated above its Curie temperature— the temperature above which certain materials lose their permanent magnetic properties—it can be permanently demagnetized.

“The lack of magnetic anomalies in regions with large impact basins and large shield volcanoes implies that Mars’ dynamo shut down before heavy bombardment and volcanism,” said AlHantoobi. “Magnetic minerals in regions of volcanic activities are susceptible to heat above the Curie temperature, leading to demagnetization if the global magnetic field is no longer present.”

It appears that around four billion years ago, the global magnetic field on Mars collapsed. Now, the history of its magnetic field is archived in its crust.

“We can see that in the five regions where Mars’ crustal field is particularly strong, there is a strong positive correlation coefficient between magnetic field strength and iron content,” said AlHantoobi. “It’s possible that this is due to thermoremanent magnetization of iron-rich basalt with abundant single-domain magnetic carriers such as magnetite, and therefore high magnetic susceptibility.

“This theory hasn’t been explored before. We used a model of the magnetic field created using data from the Mars Global Surveyor mission and MAVEN, and mineral maps from TES to explore the potential relationships between the magnetic field observed and the mineralogy of the Martian crust.

“A possible explanation for some of the strong crustal magnetic fields observed from orbit is local mineralogical enhancements of those regions,” explained AlHantoobi. “Therefore, Mars’ ancient core dynamo does not need to produce an extremely strong global magnetic field to explain the strong magnetic anomalies. Instead, the rocks may be much better recorders for the magnetic field than typical lithologies available on Earth.

“The methods we used rely on the presence of a recorded magnetic field, so we couldn’t comment on the crustal regions where there isn’t a recorded magnetic field. However, we can see that in both the individual and the linked correlation maps of the geologic units, there are regions with strong positive correlation, and others with a strong negative correlation. Unfortunately, the areas with the highest recorded magnetic fields comprised many small geologic units and didn’t contain enough data sets to provide us with a reliable correlation value.”

Research such as AlHantoobi’s is crucial for better understanding the universe around us and offers unprecedented access to the history of Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor. NASA’s InSight lander touched down on Mars in November 2018 to investigate the Martian crust and measure the strength and direction of the planet’s magnetic field, among many other intelligence gathering missions. Data from InSight will hopefully clarify whether the strong magnetic signal coming from the rocks beneath the lander is coming from rocks deep underground or closer to the surface. If the magnetism is coming from rocks nearer the surface, it would imply the strong magnetic field persisted around Mars for longer than currently thought.

Additionally, the Hope Mars Mission from the Emirates Mohamed Bin Rashid Space Center will study the atmospheric layers of Mars and help explain how the collapse of the planet’s global magnetic field contributed to the stripping of the atmosphere that could have sustained liquid water. Understanding the magnetic history of the red planet could help researchers determine whether there ever was any life on Mars.

Jade Sterling
News and Features Writer
28 January 2020

The post Is There Magnetism on Mars? appeared first on Khalifa University.