Abu Dhabi company Aspire will invest $54m to fund new research in priority sectors

Two Abu Dhabi universities will open new research institutes in three sectors facing urgent challenges: precision medicine, food security and sustainable energy production.

Aspire, an entity of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council, has pledged to fund the research by investing at least $54 million over five years.

UAE University will have two research institutes while Khalifa University will have one.

“With the growing focus on sustainability in all spheres of life today, we are now able to support world-leading research in these priority areas,” said Arthur Morrish, chief executive of Aspire.

“We look forward to seeing the long-term impact the [research institutes] will have and to their recommendations that can enhance the quality of life of the local population with far-reaching implications for health care, food security and sustainable energy.”

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Muhamed Nebuhan Shajahan, BSc in Computer Engineering student, was invited to be a part of the Mohamed Bin Zayed Majlis for Future Generations (MBZMFG) Virtual Future Lab program.

Titled ‘Beyond Ideas, To Next Steps,’ the two-day intense program took place from 25 – 26 September 2021. Muhamed joined one hundred other students from around the UAE to discuss the challenges and opportunities in developing the UAE’s sustainable future.

“It was a beneficial experience that helped me and my co-participants understand the importance of critically thinking about designing our future as well the communities’ future,” Muhamed shared.

The program was led by former Harvard professor Dr. Maurizio Travaglini, who encouraged the students to be future planners who, as Muhamed explained “open the immediate doors before the farthest ones and close the doors that stop us.”

“The program inspired me to think about the world, as a place of opportunities and the doors we can open to make a difference,” Muhamed said.

The event provided a safe space for students to collaborate and exchange ideas, while being guided to think about their own future through the lens of different design concepts.��

The students discussed the complexity of the concept of “entanglement” and “knotty objects,” which refers to how various practices, technologies, practices, and processes become “entangled” in an object, and how this affects societies and is in turn affected by society.��

In another exercise, the students discussed the L5 space colony. L5 is an area of the solar system where the gravitational force is neutral, making it suitable for operating satellites and a launch pad for future space explorations.��

“We imagined ourselves as a NASA team, that was asked to find innovative ideas to recruit people to live in this society. The groups shared their ideas, which were very different from conventional methods of recruiting people for space exploration. Also, we described a day-in-the-life of a person in the L5 colony and the importance of togetherness among the people in this society,” Muhamed shared.

“The teamwork and communication skills that I acquired from KU have truly helped me throughout this session. The program itself was a different experience than the usual virtual meeting to think about our future.” 

Erica Solomon
Senior Publication Specialist
2 November 2021

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Seramic Materials applies patented technology to upcycle industrial solid waste to sustainable and high-value ceramic products, driving the industry towards a near-zero waste goal

Started by Dr. Nicolas Calvet, Khalifa University Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and CEO of Seramic Materials, and Dr. Khalid Al Ali, Khalifa University Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and Director of Operations at Seramic Materials, Seramic Materials Ltd. was established in 2019 to manufacture 100 percent recycled ceramic products from heavy industry waste, such as incinerator ash and byproducts from the steel industry.

“Seramic Materials is a UAE-based company born out of the unique and innovative environment of the Masdar Institute at Khalifa University,” Dr. Calvet said. “We developed a unique circular economy solution to recycling solid industrial waste into sustainable value-added products in the technical ceramics and construction materials markets.”

Replacing a precious natural resource with waste products for ceramic production has myriad advantages beyond keeping the conventional raw materials in the ground. Using waste products can be significantly cheaper, meaning a final product can be 10 to 50 percent cheaper depending on its application.

By avoiding the extraction of natural resources and their transport, carbon emissions are significantly reduced and manufacturing energy consumption is also lowered. Dr. Calvet says this represents at least a 20 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions compared with conventional ceramic manufacturing methods. Plus, all the waste that would have headed to landfill can now be diverted to a second life and purpose.

. Seramic Materials can combine the UAE’s steel slag, municipal solid waste incinerator ashes, bauxite residue, waste sludge, broken glass and more with non-depleting natural resources, such as desert sand, to develop their ceramic products.

“We tune the properties of the final ceramic product depending on its expected use by mixing different waste products together,” Dr. Calvet said. “Our ceramic materials can be shaped in any form and dimension depending on their intended applications, such as bricks, floor and wall tiles, 3D claddings, pavers, and much more.

Seramic Materials is now expanding into technical ceramics, manufacturing advanced thermal energy storage materials, which can operate in temperatures as high as 1250°C, and which are, to date, the most cost-efficient ceramics on the market.

Thermal energy storage involves storing heat, generated for instance by solar energy, until it is needed to be turned into electricity or reused directly as process heat. It is the release of the heat that is used to generate the power.

“Our solution is called ReThink Seramic – Flora and it is a game changer in high-temperature applications – anything over 700°C,” Dr. Calvet said. “Until now, the bottleneck in this industry was the high cost of the ceramic material itself. By operating at a higher temperature, the heat-to-electricity conversion efficiency is improved, and since Flora is durable up to 1250°C, it can be thermally cycled over decades without damage.”

“We have developed the first state-of-the-art laboratory in the GCC dedicated to industrial solid waste valorization” said Dr. Khalid Al Ali.�� Thanks to this one-of-its-kind laboratory, the team at Seramic Materials have developed formulations that are patented in Europe, USA, India, China and the GCC and are constantly working on new applications to support products across the ceramics value chain.�� Seramic Materials recently signed an intellectual property (IP) agreement with Khalifa University to commercialize 5 patents related to steel slags upcycling.

“Our vision is a more sustainable present achieved by developing a circular economy,” Dr. Calvet said. “We have an innovative approach that we hope will continuously enhance our ceramic formulations and offer countless new value-added applications for our commercial products.”

Jade Sterling
Science Writer
18 October 2021

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Hydrogen offers a potential solution to the problem of supporting more sustainable industries, but technical, economic, social, and political factors stand in its way, according to a new paper produced by an international team of experts from a variety of disciplines.��

Using decarbonized hydrogen, so-called green hydrogen, is an avenue to a low-carbon economy that is attracting renewed interest. Technological developments and cost reductions could allow hydrogen to contribute significantly to a decarbonized economy as a fuel and a feedstock. As a fuel, hydrogen offers considerable potential because it generates no carbon dioxide on combustion. As a feedstock, low-carbon hydrogen could replace high-carbon feedstocks in processes such as steel production.

At a critical juncture for the industry and global climate, Dr. Steve Griffiths, SVP Research and Development and Professor of Practice, offers a critical, systematic and interdisciplinary assessment of industrial decarbonization via hydrogen. Dr. Griffiths and his team reviewed more than 2,100 sources of evidence, referencing over 700 papers and studies, using a sociotechnical lens to examine hydrogen production and use across multiple industries. The work on hydrogen is part of a broader set of studies that the team has undertaken with support from the Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC) in the United Kingdom.

Team members were Dr. Benjamin Sovacool, University of Sussex, UK; Dr. Jinsoo Kim, Hanyang University, Republic of Korea; Dr. Morgan Bazilian, Colorado School of Mines, USA; and Joao Uratani, a research engineer also from Khalifa University.

Their review was published in.

“Hydrogen is increasingly being positioned as a key energy vector due to its versatility as a chemical store of energy for use in the power, buildings, transport, and industrial sectors,” Dr. Griffiths said. “More importantly, hydrogen is one of the key options for many decarbonizing industrial sectors, particularly those that require hydrogen as a feedstock for process chemistry.”

Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe but hydrogen atoms do not exist in nature by themselves. To produce hydrogen, its atoms need to be decoupled from other elements in resources like  water, plants or fossil fuels. The method by which hydrogen is produced largely determines its sustainability.

“,” Dr. Griffiths said. “Its properties make it an excellent fuel but hydrogen requires considerable care in processing and handling. Further, transporting it long distances in a liquid form is currently very expensive.”

Although the use of hydrogen is somewhat limited in scope today, a very different future may be on the horizon. The industrial processes used to make steel, cement, ceramics, glass and chemicals all require varying amounts of high-temperature heat. For these sectors, hydrogen is one of the very few long-term options for replacing fossil fuels at large scale.

The use of hydrogen in shipping, particularly in the form of ammonia, is the major opportunity here.

However, the main challenge with scaling up the hydrogen-supply chain is to lower the costs of transporting it. The existing technologies for transporting and distributing hydrogen long distances in a volumetrically energy dense liquid form are still significantly more expensive than those of other fuels, such as oil and natural gas. Hydrogen, or one of its derivatives, particularly ammonia, may play a prominent role in such long distance transport. However, pipeline transmission of hydrogen gas is currently the economic means of moving hydrogen at large scale.

Compressed hydrogen could use converted natural-gas pipelines, or newly built ones, or even be co-transported with natural gas to partially decarbonize natural gas already used in the energy sector. A lack of dedicated global hydrogen pipeline networks is, however, a current challenge to be overcome if regional and national hydrogen trade is to be established. Once transported, hydrogen storage becomes the priority, but hydrogen’s low volumetric energy density can make it difficult to store. Fortunately, there appears to be no insurmountable technical barrier to storing hydrogen over the longer term in high capacity geologic formations like aquifers and rock caverns.

The final cost of hydrogen in international trade will depend on what it costs to produce and transport it, Dr. Griffiths said. “Connecting suppliers and consumers at the global level via the most cost-effective means will be a great challenge.”

Such considerations are particularly relevant for connecting global supply and demand. This said, sociopolitical factors could hinder hydrogen’s growing role in industrial decarbonization and so must also be considered.

The review paper considers the social and technical systems involved in making, distributing, and using hydrogen, with the authors accounting for institutional inputs, policy and regulatory frameworks, and financial and economic enablers. There are many socio-technical elements at play:

“Industry decarbonization via hydrogen will require policy mechanisms that stimulate both hydrogen supply and demand and support development of the necessary supply-chain infrastructure,” Dr. Griffiths said. “While policy toolkits can be built upon existing efforts targeting renewable-energy generation and use, specific hydrogen-targeted policy instruments will be needed.”

Further, policies can spur innovation, and dedicated funds will be required to support research and development in academia and industry.

In this context, dedicated hydrogen-research centers are appearing, and public-private partnerships for the demonstration and scale up of hydrogen technologies and projects can be found around the world. Regulatory and certification frameworks are emerging that cover the production, supply-chain and industrial-use elements of hydrogen at the national level. Internationally, seventeen standards had been published and fifteen more were under development at the time the paper was written. These standards cover most elements of the technical pathways for hydrogen production and use.

However, the degree to which countries have been able to implement regulation varies. National and regional regulatory bodies will need to adopt harmonized policy instruments to avoid being excluded from accessing international hydrogen markets. Additionally, the regulatory frameworks on safety and quality control will need to be particularly robust.

“The absence of comprehensive, national and international policy and regulatory frameworks for hydrogen adoption, particularly for  industrial systems, is a major challenge,” Dr. Griffiths said. “Despite increasing interest in hydrogen, policy support in the form of roadmaps, action and strategic plans is still not fully implemented on a global level.”

The future of hydrogen trade relationships will also rely heavily on geopolitics. The role that renewable hydrogen could play on the energy geopolitics stage remains to be seen. Particularly as transport costs are reduced, the importance of where resources are found will be reduced. Contrasting this to the geopolitical clout afforded to countries located on top of robust oil reserves suggests how global geopolitical dynamics could be affected.

“Whether countries will adopt particular roles in a hydrogen-economy transition is likely to depend on existing resources and infrastructure,” Dr. Griffiths said. “Some countries are more likely than others to lead the global markets in production capacity and export heavily, while others will focus on importation to meet demand. Countries that are more likely to import are already net energy importers under the current fossil-energy paradigm.” Industrial adoption of low-carbon hydrogen still faces a significant number of barriers. Regulatory and standardization instruments are perhaps the key means of driving rapid hydrogen utilization, according to the study authors, but support for R&D is also critical.

“Decarbonizing hydrogen is key to decarbonizing the chemical and refining industries, but it will also help decarbonize a number of other industries,” Dr. Griffiths said.

Applying decarbonized hydrogen across a wide range of sectors could benefit a large number of companies and economies. Of these, perhaps the most significant are the oil and gas firms that are increasingly facing calls to halt fossil-fuel production. As these companies look to diversify their portfolios, green hydrogen or hydrogen produced from fossil sources coupled with carbon capture, could be critical. Cutting the costs to achieve global industrial adoption of low-carbon hydrogen will require massive investment and scale, which oil majors could provide.

The authors noted that moving forward, the most ambitious targets for hydrogen use will require additional study, ranging from R&D to market stimulation, with further consideration of potential geopolitical ramifications and also further consideration of opportunities and challenges for hydrogen adoption in developing countries.

Most articles about hydrogen involve engineering and the natural sciences with social sciences representing a small fraction of total papers published. This suggests there is a lot of room to study in more detail the sociotechnical aspects of hydrogen use.

Jade Sterling
Science Writer
29 September 2021

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Khalifa University researchers found a way to optimize capillary action – a process that moves liquid passively – in thin-film evaporators, which are used to generate steam and purify water with solar energy, cool buildings and electronics, and much more.��

Evaporation is a process fundamental to everyday life. It keeps our bodies cool and the air moist, and it plays a critical role in a number of industrial systems that drive our society today, from providing power and purifying water, to cooling buildings and electronics.�� Thin-film evaporation is an extremely effective and energy-efficient way to transfer heat. For thin-film evaporation to work, however, a stable liquid film needs to be maintained on the surface, which can be a challenge.��

Inspired by the same process used by plants to carry water up from their roots to their leaves, capillary-fed wicks offer an attractive means of moving liquid to the surface since it is a passive mechanism; it does not rely on an external power supply or a mechanical pump to deliver the fluid to the evaporator.

Researchers and engineers are continuously exploring ways to improve the performance of passive liquid propagation, solar energy-driven evaporation and water distillation. “Using wicks to supply liquid to the evaporating surface via a process called capillarity may be the solution to providing a constant, stable liquid film for thin-film evaporation,” explained Dr. Tiejun Zhang, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering. With funding support from a 2019 Abu Dhabi Award for Research Excellence (AARE), Dr. Zhang is leading a research team from Khalifa University to investigate how to improve wickability, or how efficiently liquid travels up through a wick, and in turn, the performance of thin-film evaporation. They recently published their work in the journal.��

Co-authors include Dr. Hongxia Li, Postdoctoral Fellow, Afra Al Ketbi and Qiangshun Guan, Graduate Students, and Dr. Mohamed Alhosani and Ablimit Aili, PhD and MSc Graduates, all from the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Wicking is the absorption of a liquid by a porous material, with the liquid then transferred through the process of evaporation. Daily examples of capillary action can be seen when dipping a paintbrush in water where the liquid is drawn up between the brush hairs against gravity, or in a paper towel dipped in spilled coffee as the liquid moves up the pores of the paper. Rather than an external energy supply causing capillary action, intermolecular forces cause the surface tension of the liquid and the adhesive forces between the liquid and solid to propel the liquid through the solid material. This is how the tallest trees can pull water through the roots to the highest branches.

The crucial role of capillary pumping for thin-film evaporators has motivated KU researchers to explore ways to improve wickability.�� 

Many factors, like surface wettability and permeability, affect a material’s ability to propagate, or spread of liquid and can significantly reduce the rate at which the liquid is absorbed in the wick. Viscous pressure drop, surface roughness, blockages, and twists and turns can all slow the movement of the liquid through the material.

Wickability can be enhanced by improving the intrinsic wettability of the wick surfaces to stop it from drying out during evaporation, and through designing a porous structure to maximize fluid flow.

Dr. Zhang’s team developed a wick with excellent capillary pumping ability by creating nanostructures made of copper onto a water-loving, hydrophilic surface, also made of copper. This created a large, porous surface area for thin-film evaporation. As an additional benefit, in solar-driven applications where the wicking porous material also acts as a solar absorber, these nano-structures can also help harvest the sunlight more efficiently.

The KU team then used their prototype to create a model to predict how effective a material’s wickability would be based on a number of different factors, including pore sizes, shapes and orientations. The model can help researchers design effective wicks in the future.

“We systematically characterized the water propagation dynamics from microscale to macroscale through experimental observation and theoretical modelling,” explained Dr. Li. “We fabricated a nanostructured porous wicking surface—essentially a copper micromesh attached to a flat copper substrate with a nanostructured surface. The micromesh improves wickability by acting as the wicking structure, providing capillary pressure with relatively high permeability, while the copper oxide nanostructures enhance the surface hydrophilicity.”

The team then observed the water propagation behaviors under optical and infrared thermal cameras to develop a capillary pressure model and permeability model to predict how efficiently the capillary-pumped water travelled along the porous surfaces. They also conducted studies with varying pore sizes before optimizing pore dimension to achieve the maximum capillary pumping rate.

The KU team’s technology offers outstanding solar-driven evaporation capability owing to their high liquid propagation rate and excellent light absorption. The proposed scalable nanostructured porous surfaces promise great potential in broad energy and sustainability applications.

Jade Sterling
Science Writer
9 June 2021

The post Harnessing Capillary Action and Solar Energy to Improve Evaporation and Produce Clean Water appeared first on Khalifa University.

Team Demonstrates Energy and Cost Savings Potential for Acid Gas Enrichment Units

A collaborative project at the Khalifa University Center for Catalysis and Separation has explored how to improve the sustainability of the acid gas enrichment (AGE) process in natural gas processing plants operating in hot countries, to reduce their carbon footprint and improve energy efficiency.

When natural gas contains containing significant amounts of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide, it is considered ‘sour gas’ and has to undergo processes that remove the acidic components through a process called ‘gas sweetening’.

Gas sweetening units produce a by-product known as ‘acid gas’ besides the main product named ‘sweet gas’. Acid gas, which is a mixture of H2S and CO2 predominately, is processed further in sulfur recovery units to prevent the emission of sulfur species and recover the elemental sulfur. If the acid gas contains low concentrations of H2S, an AGE unit is employed to enrich the H2S content of the acid gas. AGE units also produce a CO2-rich stream besides the enriched acid gas. In hot climates like in the UAE, high ambient temperature leads to AGE operation with hotter solvents, which results in higher energy consumption in the regeneration section of the plant. In order to reduce this inefficiency, the team considered the use of a scheme for cooling the solvent within an AGE unit, to reduce the operational energy.

The team was composed of Khalifa University Associate Professor Dr. Abdallah S. Berrouk, Assistant Professor Dr. Yasser F. AlWahedi, Research Engineer Satyadileep Dara, and Chemical Engineering alumna Aisha A. AlHammadi, along with Abdulla Al Shaiba from Al Yasat Petroleum Operations Company Ltd and Fadi Al Khasawneh from the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.  

“We looked to integrate a Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube (RHVT) within the acid gas enrichment unit to decrease its energy consumption while enhancing the purity of the resulting gas product,” Dara explained. He was the lead author on a recently published paper in the Journal of Cleaner Production titled .

A RHVT is a mechanical device that separates a compressed gas into hot and cold streams. Requiring no moving parts, electricity, or Freon, it instead leverages principles of physics to separate the gases into a hot end that can reach temperatures of 200 °C and a cold end that can reach −50 °C, making it an energy-efficient cooling tool. RHVTs are often used in to cool cutting tools that heat up during use.

This potential solution to reduce the energy waste of AGE was inspired by the team’s knowledge of the UAE’s Mirfa plant.

“We were aware that the Mirfa plant produced high pressured nitrogen as a by-product of the air separation unit in the same plant complex, and realized that integrating a nitrogen-fed RHVT was the best option to reduce energy wastage, given the available resources and resulting economics,” Dara shared.

In the team’s proposed solution, the high-pressure nitrogen enters the RHVT and is separated into hotter and colder streams. The latter is then mixed with ambient air in an air-nitrogen mixer to provide a coolant stream at sufficiently lower temperatures, such that it cools down the lean solvent to the desired levels. Lower lean solvent temperature in turn results in significant reduction in energy consumption and higher product purities.

The solution they proposed was tested and validated in process simulator ProMax, which found that at the optimal temperature, their proposed RHVT solution can achieve 13 kg/s in steam savings (equivalent to 40% reduction in total steam rate). This reduced energy consumption leads to an annual carbon dioxide footprint reduction of 83.7 million kg, which is equal to a 40% reduction in the plant’s total carbon dioxide footprint. Economically, the evaluated annual energy savings translate to USD11.2 million.

The team believes that the solution they have hit upon can be utilized in sour gas processing plants in hot climates, all of which struggle with reducing energy wastage due to the high temperatures of the solvents.

“Hot climate regions like that of the Gulf would benefit significantly from the proposed scheme, since it results in a coolant stream that is not readily available in hot regions due to the high ambient temperature. And while our project used pressurized nitrogen from a specific facility, in fact any high pressure stream can be used as the working fluid for the RHVT, like compressed ambient air. Regardless what gas is used, we have demonstrated that the integration of RHVT can help a natural gas processing plant operating in hot climate achieve increased operational efficiency in terms of product quality and energy consumption,” Dr. AlWahedi added.

Following their simulation based work, the team are now doing laboratory-scale tests to assess the performance of RHVT to provide a quantitative prediction of levels of cooling achieved using the RHVT.

Zarina Khan

Senior Editor

26 November 2018

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Team Develops First Index to Account for the Sustainability Performance of Desalination Technologies

In water-scarce urban environments like those of the UAE, desalination technologies play a central role in transforming plentiful saline and brackish water to create freshwater that meets the population’s needs. In the UAE, natural gas-powered thermal desalination is estimated to produce around 80% of the country’s domestic water.

However, desalination is not an entirely benign process, with associated economic, environmental and social impacts. This makes ensuring that desalination does not harm the very environments and populations that they are meant to help support an ongoing challenges. In response to this need, a Khalifa University research team has collaborated with both international and regional experts to develop the first universal integrated framework to assess the sustainability of desalination technologies.

“As far as we could find out, there was no unified sustainability metric to measure the sustainability of a desalination plant in the UAE. That is why we decided to formulate a comprehensive framework for the UAE, to generate a sustainability index that takes into account the four factors of sustainability, which are environmental, social, technical, and economical,” explained Dr. Faisal AlMarzooqi, Assistant Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at Khalifa University.

A paper on the framework titled “An integrated framework for sustainability assessment of seawater desalination” was recently published in journal Desalination, co-authored by research associate Yazan Ibrahim, Dr. AlMarzooqi, Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering Dr. Hassan A. Arafat, and Professor of Engineering Systems and Management Dr. Toufic Mezher, all from Khalifa University.

“What makes desalination a different and more urgent challenge than ever before, is the rapid evolution of this region in its social, environmental, and economic contexts. This led to a significant dependence on desalination as a reliable freshwater alternative due to the geographical and geological structure of the UAE that limit the number of natural water resources,” Ibrahim shared.

The framework developed by the team combines different desalination-related sub-factors and covers the four sustainability factors. It took a unique methodological approach to integrate the different framework components to be able to assess the sustainability of any desalination technology worldwide. The framework consists of three levels, the first being the goal sought to be reached, the
second level being the main sustainability factors and the third being the sub-factors assigned to each factor.�� The framework was then demonstrated by assessing the sustainability of the three main desalination technologies in the UAE, which are multi-stage flash distillation (MSF), multiple-effect distillation (MED), and seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO).

“SWRO, which is a membranes-based process, is the most widely adopted technology worldwide, with a global share of around 68% in 2018. It is characterized with low environmental impacts, low cost, reduced land use, and ease of operation. On the other hand, MED and MSF, which are thermally-based technologies, are known for their reliability and robustness as well as their high environmental footprint. Therefore, the challenge for sustainable desalination today lies in the ability to find a tradeoff between the economic, social, and environmental aspects of these technologies,” Yazan explained.

Overall, the three main sustainability factors were environmental, techno-economic and social, each of which had 5-6 desalination-related sub-factors, which were selected from published literature and expert opinion on the topics. The technical factor demonstrated the technically feasible of the technology. This is closely related to the economic factor. Therefore, the team decided to combine those two factors into one representative factor namely techno-economic. Some of the sub-factors included water extraction and discharged brine impacts in the environmental factor, quality of produced water and scaling and fouling propensity in the techno-economic factor, and technology safety and level of noise in the social factor.

When the framework was applied to the three major types of desalination technologies used in the UAE, SWRO was found to be the most sustainable technology followed by MED and MSF.

“This was due to the unique local conditions and parameters of the UAE – like the relatively low price of natural gas and the relatively higher weightage of environmental impact. That is why it is important to calculate the sustainability of a technology in a way that is specific to its local application. In the future if new technologies emerge, these too can be added to the index and framework,” Dr. Al Marzooqi explained.

The team is now working on the technological aspects of sustainable desalination and hope that opportunities are generated in the near future to further develop sustainability indices.

“Till date, the economics and efficiency of sustainable desalination technologies are not able to fully replace traditional desalination technologies. Sustainable desalination technologies are still awaiting a technological breakthrough to give it a competitive advantage against traditional desalination technologies. This research will serve as a performance metric for sustainable desalination. This will benefit the UAE and the world by enabling the government and regulatory bodies in measuring the
current sustainability of desalination plants and setting future targets which will help in achieving other sustainability related targets such as climate change and other,” Dr. Arafat added.

And though the team’s framework was developed to test the sustainability of desalination technologies in the UAE, it can be universally applied to other desalination technologies and/or other countries.

Their research has also been presented through two conference presentations – one at the International Desalination Workshop that was held in Busan, South Korea in November 2017, and another at the Desalination for the Environment Conference of the European Desalination Society that was held in September 2018 in Athens, Greece.

Zarina Khan
Senior Editor
17 December 2018

The post Integrated Framework to Measure Sustainability of Desalination appeared first on Khalifa University.

Set to Graduate in Fall 2019, Tawaddod Alkindi Weathers Icy Conditions to be Part of First Solar Panel System Installation near Antarctic Circle

A Khalifa University Material Science and Engineering Graduate, Tawaddod Alkindi, has become the first student to complete her internship at the Casey research station that is part of the Australian Antarctic station, located on Vincennes Bay in the Windmill Islands, just outside the Antarctic Circle.

Alkindi had the opportunity to participate in the installation of 105 solar panels and three inverters that is expected to provide 30 KiloWatts of power to the Casey research station’s power grid, which is the first solar power array at an Australian Antarctic research station. The array will help reduce the consumption and storage costs of diesel fuel during the summer month when the location receives nearly eight hours sunshine per day. The Casey research station opened in 1988 to support scientific programs in Antarctica.

A large number of scientific programs are supported in and around Casey, including an international collaboration project studying the bedrock geology and overlying East Antarctic ice sheet. The project partners include Khalifa University of Science and Technology, the Australian government and Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar). The project aims to enhance scientific understanding of the effects of global warming and climate change on the polar continent.

Alkindi said: “It was great to see the team at the station actively implementing solutions to address global climate change and environmental issues, and more importantly they are working in remote and not-so-remote locations to implement innovative solutions.”

Her internship days were filled with visits to various sections of the research station. She added: “On some days, I would visit mechanical workshops, maintenance facilities, water purification facility, remediation site, powerhouse, survival tools store, and the solar power system. But during inclement weather conditions, I would tour inside the accommodation building, where I learned about the heating/cooling systems.”

Alkindi believes it was an enriching experience as one could always meet someone from a different culture, especially during the meals. She found this time very good for sharing with others the culture of the UAE and the government’s commitment to empower Emirati youth and support women in all fields.

She said: “Meal time was my favorite because I had the pleasure to talk to different people from other cultures. It was also inspiring to hear the dreams and experience of each person I met, and get myself transported to a different part of the world.”

Her learning about the Antarctic weather continued when she participated in an outdoor survival training and learned navigation skills including the use of map, compass, and GPS, to reach the survival camp. During the training, she had to wear three layers of clothes and thermals provided by the Australian Antarctic division in addition to special types of boots, socks, and gloves.

She added: “We hiked for 10km carrying a backpack weighing 10kg with boots weighing another 2.5 kg, in harsh weather conditions and wind speeds of 42 knots under heavy snow fall.”

It was during those hikes with her Casey colleagues that she was able to watch the penguins. But more importantly, waking up at 2:30am, she could view the Aurora Australis, the incredibly captivating atmospheric lightshow, which is the Southern cousin to the Northern Lights.

Associate Professor Dr. Daniel Choi said: “As Tawaddod AlKindi’s former academic advisor, I am very proud that she has completed her internship at the Casey research station on Vincennes Bay in the Antarctic. Tawaddod has been always interested in global issue of sustainability in energy and challenging herself to resolve the issues while she was studying MSc at Khalifa University. Her achievements from this internship are sure to be a good example for other Emirati young leaders.”

As a Khalifa University Material Science and Engineering student, set to graduate in Fall 2019, Alkindi wanted to give due consideration to environmental and sustainable aspects before taking up any project. For her Master’s thesis, her main target was to reduce materials waste and costs and search for alternative solutions, preserve more of the materials in the environment and stick to environment-friendly materials.

Moreover, her syllabus at Khalifa University included courses related to sustainability, renewable energy, and advanced technologies, which provided a solid foundation and helped her to better understand the various projects in Antarctica and their objectives. She added: “This indeed has increased my awareness and made me want to contribute even more towards any project or activity that would positively impact any part of the world.”

Through her Master’s thesis, Alkindi has introduced a new cell architecture for Li ion batteries to help solve the challenges related to battery weight. Her laboratory results have proved that macro-porous cathode electrodes are promising for battery light-weighting. She has presented her work at the Materials Research Society (MRS) Conference – Fall 2018 meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, and has submitted a research paper to Springer’s Electronic Materials Letters.

News Writer
04 April 2019

The post Khalifa University Master’s Graduate in Material Science and Engineering Interns at Casey Research Station in Antarctica appeared first on Khalifa University.

University Announces Key Research Collaborations as Faculty Led Knowledge-Sharing Sessions across Various WFES 2019 Platforms

His Highness Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chief, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince’s Court, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Khalifa University, and His Excellency Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment, visited the Khalifa University stand at the World Future Energy Forum 2019 that was held from 14 – 17 January as part of the Abu Dhabi Sustainable Week (ADSW) 2019 at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center (ADNEC). The event brought together investors and service providers in the global sustainability sector.

Khalifa University showcased a total of five sustainable concepts in research innovation at the event. The university also announced key research collaborations with local and international organizations, marking its prime role advancing new solutions and technologies in the renewable energy and sustainable technologies areas.

The four-day WFES, inaugurated on 14 January focused on the intellectual leadership of sustainability while facilitating partnerships between innovators and investors in energy platforms, climate change, water and the future of mobility, space, bio-technology and technology sectors.

Some of the projects that were featured at the Khalifa University stand (Hall 4; Booth A401) include advance material for CO2 capture, the Masdar Institute Solar Platform, the Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium’s (SBRC) flagship Seawater Energy and Agriculture System (SEAS) project and its path-breaking commercial flight with biofuel, conversion of waste cooking oil to biodiesel in the UAE and a condition monitoring system with multi-agent mechanism for external non-contact smart inspection of buried oil and gas pipelines.

Dr. Arif Sultan Al Hammadi, Executive Vice-President, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, said: “For Khalifa University, the premier gathering of the global sustainability sector at World Future Energy Summit 2019 offers the perfect platform to interact with energy industry leaders and explore potential collaborations. It is also an occasion to highlight Masdar Institute’s research accomplishments and showcase its capabilities in clean energy and sustainable technologies for the benefit of the international corporate majors. We believe this year’s participation in WFES activities will give us the impetus to further advance our research and innovation expertise in areas such as energy storage, mobility, solar, energy efficiency, waste-to-energy, water and environment, advanced materials, as well as carbon capture to help increase the contribution of clean energy to the UAE’s total energy mix in an efficient, safe and economical manner.”

Additionally, Khalifa University higher officials and faculty lead knowledge exchange across various WFES platforms. Dr Steve Griffiths, Senior Vice-President for Research and Development and Professor of Practice, Khalifa University, shared his perspectives in a session titled ‘In Conversation: The foreign relations of energy transition – positioning the Gulf’ at the Energy Forum.

Dr. Steve Griffiths said: “Khalifa University is proud to showcase new technologies at the World Future Energy Summit, which has gathered leaders across key technology and sustainability platforms that include artificial intelligence, energy, environment, water, health and space. These leaders are contributing to knowledge exchange, highlighting innovations and advancing solutions to global challenges in sustainability. We believe participation in this year’s summit effectively showcases Khalifa University’s capabilities in research, development and innovation across the sustainability spectrum.”

Dr. Nicolas Calvet, Assistant Professor, College of Engineering, and Chair of the Masdar Institute Solar Platform – Khalifa University, is speaking about concentrated solar power (CSP) industry during a session titled ‘’ at the Solar Forum. Dr. Mohammad Abu Zahra, Associate Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, and his team are presenting their work on advance materials for CO2 capture, including three individual projects.

Clarence Michael
News Writer
16 January 2019

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Reviews Khalifa University Students’ Projects in Renewable-Powered Hydrogen Production Plants and Sustainable Water Desalination Technologies

Christine Lagarde, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), toured Khalifa University of Science and Technology’s Masdar City Campus during her visit to the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (‘Masdar’) to witness the progress of Abu Dhabi’s flagship sustainable urban community and learn how investment in youth is helping the UAE to deliver on the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Lagarde met with young students and researchers of Khalifa University, who presented their research projects, which covered a range of topics including renewable-powered hydrogen production plants and sustainable water desalination technologies.

The visit also included a tour of Khalifa University of Science and Technology’s cutting-edge research laboratories and presentations from three innovative start-up companies supported by The Catalyst – a joint venture between Masdar, Khalifa University’s Masdar Institute, and multinational energy company BP.

Lagarde, on her visit to Masdar City, said: “It is inspiring to hear so many young people speak so passionately about their collective drive towards achieving the UN’s sustainable development goals. We rely on the next generation to continue to innovate and find solutions to address our global sustainability challenges.”

Dr Arif Sultan Al Hammadi, Executive Vice-President, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, said: “We welcome Christine Lagarde to Masdar Institute and her interest in advanced research projects in energy and water-related areas, which demonstrate our status as a top-ranked academic institution dedicated to encouraging sustainable initiatives among the youth.

“Khalifa University’s 16 research centers that drive intellectual capital creation are focused on the UAE’s strategically essential sectors such as clean energy, aerospace, nuclear engineering, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology as well as oil and gas. We believe Lagarde’s visit will help highlight our scientific research in sustainability among the other United Nations organizations and the benefits they bring to the wider global community.”

Lagarde, who has led the IMF since 2011 and provides financial oversight for its 189 member countries, was briefed on this year’s Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW) and how a number of its key initiatives including the Zayed Sustainability Prize, WiSER, Youth 4 Sustainability, and the Masdar Emerging Leaders Programme are empowering youth to become active sustainability leaders.

ADSW 2019 also hosted the inaugural Abu Dhabi Sustainable Finance Forum, at which 25 public and private sector organizations, including Masdar, committed to support the Abu Dhabi Sustainable Finance Declaration to jointly advocate sustainable finance and investment that fosters positive social, economic and environmental impacts.

“We are delighted to receive Christine Lagarde at Masdar City, especially at a time when the nation is observing Innovation Month, so that she can see the investment the UAE is making in sustainable development, and the role we at Masdar and other stakeholders are playing in empowering youth through knowledge, innovation and entrepreneurship,” said Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, Chief Executive Officer of Masdar.

“Youth engagement is a core element of our commitment at Masdar to help the UAE achieve its sustainability goals. This opportunity to share insights on these initiatives with Lagarde, and benefit from her vast experience, will help us encourage even more young UAE nationals to become involved in the sustainability sector, whether in research, entrepreneurship, or raising awareness.”

The companies nurtured by The Catalyst and exhibited included BonApp, a mobile application designed to reduce food waste by allowing consumers to purchase fresh but unsold food from restaurants at a discount; De L’Arta, a company specialising in sustainable soil regeneration techniques as well as natural skincare products extracted from UAE native plants; and The Febits, which utilizes autonomous sea-surface cleaning robots to clear oil spills and pollutants.

As part of the tour, Lagarde participated in a roundtable discussion titled ‘Rising to the challenge: how UAE youth are taking the lead on sustainability’. Discussions focused on how government, the private sector and non-profit community are all collaborating to empower youth to shape the sustainability agenda, with input from young participants representing multiple initiatives.

Findings of a Masdar-commissioned global survey of youth attitudes towards sustainability, climate change and renewable energy, indicating that young people are willing to take the lead in finding solutions to climate change, were also debated, along with Masdar-led research released at ADSW 2019 concerning the technologies expected to have the most impact on sustainable development over the next five years.

10 February 2019
Abu Dhabi, UAE

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