Funding
External Funded Projects
Example of funded projects secured since joining Qatar University Feb 2009:
UREP 06 – 088 – 2 – 020, Bioadsorption for the removal of containments from Petrochemical industry wastewater effluents.
Role: Lead PI
Funding: $20,000.00
End date: 15-Jun-2010
UREP 06 – 113 – 2 – 030, Towards a Sustainable Environment: Rubbish or Recourse? A study into the use of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) as an energy source
Role: Lead PI
Funding: $30,000.00
End date: 15-Jun-2010
NPRP 09 – 328 – 2 – 122, CO2 capture and photoconversion to a renewable fuel
Role: Lead PI, Collaborators: University College London
Funding: $1,043,026.36
End date: 01-Dec-2014
Natural plants demonstrate the most direct strategy for renewable energy production, featuring a neutral carbon cycle process in which carbon dioxide is converted to energy rich sugars by solar energy. The motivation of this project is to mimic the natural photosynthetic process by investigating the feasibility of CO2 photoreduction to a renewable fuel over a robust inorganic photocatalyst under visible light irradiation. The vision is to develop efficient inorganic photocatalysts capable of harnessing visible light to achieve the reduction of carbon dioxide into a liquid chemical fuel-methanol, which has very high energy density (1000 times higher than hydrogen per volume) and can be easily stored and transported. In summary, CO2 and water are converted photosynthetically to produce methanol and oxygen, which can be then used directly in fuel cells or combustion engines, therefore employing solar energy to generate renewable power using a neutral carbon cycle process. This project will address 1) national and international concerns to cut CO2 emmisions and 2) a renewable and sustainable energy supply. The project is a collaboration between qata university and University college london’s center for CO2 technology.
UREP 07 – 046 – 2 – 011, CLEARING THE AIR: FLARE REDUCTION FROM THE OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY IN QATAR
Role: Lead PI, Qatar Gas
Funding: $49,999.00
End date: 31-Dec-2010
NPRP 09 – 739 – 2 – 284, Enhancing Qatar’s Future Oil and Gas Technology via Design and Evaluation of Ionic Liquids
Role: Lead PI, Collaborates: Queen’s University Belfast, UK
Funding: $974,004.53
End date: 01-Jun-2015
This proposal establishes a partnership between Qatar University (QU) and the world leading Ionic Liquids group (QUILL) at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB). As such it will initiate a research program which will act as a foundation to allow QU to develop into the leading Middle East research institution in the field of Ionic Liquid Technology (ILT). These novel liquids have found application in numerous areas, including process chemistry, medical applications and as functional materials. This proposal will investigate ILT options for Qatar’s oil, gas and energy sectors and in so doing embed a technical competency into QU which could be extended to other Qatar industrial sectors. Aspects relevant to a number of NPRP priority projects (balancing electrical power; potential for the reuse of CO2; gas flaring; new technologies and processes friendly to environment; gas to liquid technologies; advanced modelling / prediction capabilities; metals recovery from spent catalysts etc) can be investigated by focusing on purification and upgrading of crude NGLs, exploiting recent innovations in CO2/sulphur/mercury removal, as well as the chemistry of direct NGL activation and conversion by extending recent literature and in-house research on superacid activation. Furthermore advances in combined heterogeneous catalyst/IL systems for the direct conversion of methane to benzene and hydrogen will be investigated.
UREP 08 – 035 – 2 – 008, The utilization of industrial waste heat for the production of fresh water by membrane distillation: Industrial Case studies
Role: Lead PI, Collaborates: Global Water Sustainability Center (GWSC) |ConocoPhillips Water Technology Ltd|Doha, Qatar
Funding: $56,000.00
End date: 30-Jun-2011
UREP 10 – 014 – 2 – 005, Water characterization and treatability studies of produced water from the Qatari oil and gas industry
Role: Lead PI, Collaborates: Global Water Sustainability Center (GWSC) |ConocoPhillips Water Technology Ltd|Doha, Qatar
Funding: $60,000.00
End date: 04-Jul-2012
UREP 10 – 016 – 2 – 006, Estimation, simulation and modeling of SOx, NOx and CO2 emissions from the GTL industry: environmental impact assessment.
Role: Lead PI
Funding: $59,900.00
End date: 04-Jul-2012
NPRP 5 – 590 – 2 – 238, Ionic liquids for the control and management of Qatari natural gas hydrates.
Role: Lead PI, Collaborators: Queen’s University Belfast, UK
Funding: $1,042,319.00
End date: 31-Oct-2016
The ability to control and manage natural gas hydrates would be a significant advantage to the Qatari natural gas industry. Due to their nature and propensity for blocking pipes these materials are considered problematic and thus considerable effort is used to reduce them. There are a number of strategies which try to control and manage hydrates including recent literature evidence to suggest that novel materials such as Ionic Liquids also work. However, these studies focus on only a small number of commonly available non-functionalised ionic liquids (ILs) which pose biodegradability issues. Queen’s University Belfast is at the forefront of ionic liquids technology and Qatar University through the world leading Gas Processing Centre supports the Qatari gas industry addressing such problems.
UREP 11 – 038 – 2 – 014, A study on the carbon footprint of the vinyl chloride monomer process
Role: PI
End date: 20-Jan-2014
NPRP 6 – 330 – 2 – 140, Avoiding Gas Hydrate Problems in Qatari’s Oil and Gas Industry: An Integrated Experimental and Modeling Approach
Role: PI
End date: 10-Apr-2017
Natural gas hydrates are solid substances consist of gas molecules captured in mesh cage system made of water molecules and their formation/stability depend on mixture composition, temperature and pressure. When the constituents of gas hydrates come into contact with each other at high pressure and low temperature conditions, they can form solid structures called hydrates. Natural gas hydrates are fascinating components and they can easily form during both start-up/shut-down causing operational, occupational and economical consequences; which requires substantial investments approximately up to 15% of the production cost for preventing it. For these reasons, flow assurance management is essential for successful and sustainable operation of oil and gas production both technically and economically. In this project, we will investigate the natural gas hydrate formation characteristics of Qatari type gas in both experimental (PVTx) and computational (molecular simulations) and we aim: – To measure hydrate equilibrium curve and hydrate growth/dissociation conditions for multi-component systems (with and without H2S and CO2 in the mixture) – To determine the performance of several kinetic and thermodynamic hydrate inhibitors – To design and test of novel inhibitors for effective hydrate inhibition suitable for Qatari natural gas – To design suitable monitoring techniques for minimizing inhibitor costs while maximizing reliability of hydrate prevention strategy (digital fields).
UREP 14 – 055 – 2 – 015, The use of Forward Osmosis and Membrane Distillation for desalination & industrial water treatment in Qatar
Role: Lead PI, Collaborates: Global Water Sustainability Center (GWSC) |ConocoPhillips Water Technology Ltd|Doha, Qatar
Funding: $60,000.00
End date: 18-Aug-2014
NPRP 7 – 203 – 2 – 097, Efficient Modular Pulsed Power Water Disinfection System for Water Treatment and Reuse Applications
Role: PI, Collaborators: Texas A&M Qatar
End date: 01-Mar-2018
Water treatment is a crucial industrial process that provides more acceptable water for desired end-use applications such as drinking water, industrial applications, medical applications, and water reuse. The main role of this process is to weed out the contamination and microorganisms so that the water becomes suitable for the required end-use purpose. The prevailing methods to fulfill this need are: chemical disinfection by adding chlorine, ozonization, ultiraviolet disinfection and electrical disinfection. Electrical disinfection is carried out by passing infected water through two electrodes excited from a high voltage source. Applying a suitable electric field (10-50kV/cm) can cause irreversible permeabilisation of the cell membrane. The electrical disinfection method produces no toxic by-products in the water, making it environmentally attractive. We propose a new efficient modular pulsed power water disinfection system as part of this proposal. Besides the full development of a working system, the team will address practical application of the technology in various water treatment processes.
NPRP8-270-2-106, Meeting Qatar’s Water Needs Using a Novel Desalination Approach With Enhanced Efficiency
Role: Lead PI, Collaborators: Randolph-Macon College, USA
Funding: $775,102.00
End date: 10-Sep-2019
Qatar relies heavily on the desalination of seawater to produce over 1 million m3/day of freshwater. This process is highly energy intensive, requiring as much as 15.5 kWh/m3. The objective of this project is to increase the efficiency of water desalination. Specifically, we intend to design, fabricate, characterize, and test a novel superhydrophobic membrane for increasing the throughput of Direct Contact Membrane Distillation (DCMD). The goal is to achieve desalination of seawater with an energy requirement of less than 1 kWh/m3. The DCMD process is driven by a vapor-pressure drop across a hydrophobic microporous membrane that separates a hot-brine feed from a cold distillate. Water evaporating from the hot brine passes through the membrane pores where it is then condensed by the cold distillate. The hydrophobic nature of the membrane allows the vapor to pass between the two streams, but separates the liquids. In order to increase the pore diameter in the membrane (and thus the mass flux) while still avoiding wetting, one option is to increase the hydrophobicity of the membrane as measured by the contact angle. The specific aims of the project are: • Design novel superhydrophobic membranes with controlled microstructure in terms of the surface roughness, pore diameter, and spatial pore distribution across the thickness of the membranes. This will allow the DCMD process to operate and stay stable at higher operating pressures providing a means to improve the mass throughput. The membrane design will be guided by computer simulations. • Fabricate the optimized membranes to a high level of control by electrospinning of polymer fibers. • Characterize the membranes. • Test the performance of the optimized membranes in a DCMD test-stand, creating a standardized testing protocol for DCMD membranes, and for developing a model of the DCMD process. We plan to accomplish those objectives via a set of analytical, numerical, and experimental tasks to be described in details in the submitted proposal.
UREP17-005-2-002, Assessment of electrocoagulation for Qatari oil and gas produce industrial water treatment
Role: Lead PI, Collaborators: Global Water Sustainability Center (GWSC) |ConocoPhillips Water Technology Ltd| Doha, Qatar
Funding: $59,900.00
End date: 31-May-2016
Produced water is salty water that is lifted up with the oil and gas during production. It contains various hydrocarbons and metals and need to be treated before disposal or reuse. Typically, it is estimated that three barrels of water are produced for every barrel of crude oil. Two factors favors the focus on the treatments of produce water: the vast amounts produced in Qatar in relation to the large operations in the oil and gas sectors as well as the lack of fresh water and total dependency on desalination of sea water for the production of drinking water. Electrocoagulation, one variable method of treating such water, is regaining popularity recently especially in the USA and related to the shale gas exploration produced water treatment as it has a number of major advantages over chemical processes. In this project we aim to investigate and assess the potential of the electrocoagulation as a viable option for the treatment of Qatari oil and gas produced water with respect to a number of major experimental conditions. The feasibility of creating a multistage treatment options tailor-made for the Qatari oil and gas-produced water will be investigated. The main aim is to lower the environmental impact of such industries on the sources of fresh water and help achieve the zero-discharge aims set in Qatar.
NPRP10-0107-170119, Trace CO2 Removal for Natural Gas Liquefaction by Advanced Physisorbent Materials
Role: Lead PI, Collaborators: University of Limerick, Ireland
Funding: $599,828.00
End date: 01-May-2021
The proposed research project will focus upon utilizing advanced physisorbent materials to efficiently remove trace levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) from methane (CH4). This application is especially relevant to natural gas purification (sweetening) prior to liquefaction, which requires CO2 levels to be less than 50 ppm. This project will determine the feasibility of using HUMs for natural gas sweetening and will involve two main components: evaluation of the basic properties of existing HUMs to remove trace levels of CO2 from CH4; developing HUMs for deployment in real-world applications.
NPRP10-0126-170257, Design, Synthesis and Evaluation of New UV-curable Polymeric Membranes for Energy-Efficient Gas Separations in Natural Gas Processing and Exploitation
Role: PI, Collaborators: CAM-QU, University of Mississippi, USA
End date: 23-Jan-2021
Natural gas and its supporting industries are the most important contributors to the Qatari economic growth. During processing and exploitation of this vital natural resource, carbon dioxide (CO2) is an inherent impurity that requires effective removal from mixtures with methane (CH4) and nitrogen (N2). Given the vast amounts of natural gas reserve and the amounts processed yearly, the demand for effective, sustainable and economic separations of CO2 in Qatar’s natural gas processing is vast. Polymer based gas separation membranes, which are regarded for easy manufacturing, low energy consumption and small footprint, can be successfully employed and benefit significantly these important separations. This proposal aims to develop, optimize, and reduce to practice a new family of UV-curable polyethylene glycol (PEG) containing thiol-ene network membranes, which will lead to efficient separation of carbon dioxide.
UREP23-041-2-019, Evaluation of Novel Adsorbents for Oil Removal from Produced water
Role: PI, Collaborators: Global Water Sustainability Center (GWSC) |ConocoPhillips Water Technology Ltd|Doha, Qatar
Funding: $28,750.00
End date: 17-Jan-2020
Produced water is the waste byproduct generated in the exploration and production of oil and gas from offshore and onshore wells. Produced water is the combination of formation water and injected water that are brought up to the surface along with oil and gas products. As regulations towards produced water discharge become increasingly stringent, treatment of water to effectively remove contaminants has become a challenge to the petroleum industry. This effluent contains a complex mixture of various pollutants; nonetheless, it can be broadly classified into organics and inorganics. Discharging these pollutants back into the water has become a foremost concern to the environment and government, thus, leading to more strict discharge legislations. Qatar follows the Kuwait convention established in 1978 where the oil in discharged water limits set at 40 mg/L monthly average, max 100 mg/L per day. The current limitations are under further review by the Ministry of Environment in Qatar. Process or produced waters containing dissolved organic compounds can be purified by the passage of this contaminated water over solid materials normally known as adsorbents. Due to its simplicity, ease of operation, relatively less generation of sludge, and its adequate regeneration capacity, adsorption is increasingly receiving attention in the water treatment industry. The main purpose of this research is to assess the removal of oils from water through the means of adsorption with commercial synthetic resins acting as the adsorbent material. The specific objectives are: • Compare the performance of the different resins from different companies on the basis of performance in terms of oil removal. • Optimize the treatment of produced water using synthetic resins adsorption • Evaluate the impact of various operating and water quality parameters on the performance of the adsorption process. • Evaluate the morphology of the resins before and after treatment by using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET).