1WDRC News | Spring 2013 wdrc.kaust.edu.sa

WDRC News

Spring 2013 | wdrc.kaust.edu.sa

FROM THE DIRECTORThis has been another busy, but exciting, quarter for the WDRC. As a research center, we are growing and expect to continue to grow, anticipating the addition of two new faculty members in the coming year. To add to our existing industry-sponsored research projects, we will soon commence new projects with Saudi Aramco and Toyobo, and are pleased to announce that the Saudi Ministry of Water and Electricity (MoWE) will join our Center Industry Affiliates Program (CIAP) program as a member.

As the WDRC nears the end of its fourth year in operation and approaches the completion of its first five-year cycle, we have paused and begun to look into the future, imagining what we will do in our second five-year cycle. As part of this introspective reflection, WDRC faculty and research scientists will soon convene a mini-retreat in late April to formulate a collective vision of where we want to go within the general domains of water desalination and wastewater reuse. Of course, we do not envision any radical departures from our strategic research agenda but we know that we must be flexible to recognize new trends, drivers, and opportunities. Our primary focus shall always remain on water technology innovations, but we must be sensitive and responsive to local and regional needs. For example, our initial focus has been on membrane-based desalination but, given the extensive facilities and infrastructure for thermal desalination in Saudi Arabia and the GCC region, we recently hosted a workshop on thermal desalination research needs. While we do not anticipate developing research projects specifically on thermal processes (MSF and MED), the WDRC is most interested in hybridizing and/or retrofitting thermal processes with membrane processes for overall improvements in system efficiency and performance.

A key first step in our research recalibration for the second five-year cycle will be a meeting (in June) of our Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP). This year, new members Prof. Meny Elimelech (Yale) and Prof. Bruce Logan (Penn State) will join carryover members Prof. Tony Fane (NTU, Singapore), Prof. Shane Snyder (Arizona), Prof. Enrico Drioli (Calabria, Italy), and Harry Seah (PUB, Singapore). We look forward to their advice on paths forward.—Prof. Gary Amy, Director, WDRC

UPCOMINGEVENTS

The WDRC’s Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) will meet with faculty and research staff at KAUST to discuss the ongoing and new research topics and to critique the Center’s research and knowledge transfer in order to align the Center with its strategic agenda and goals. To learn more about the SAP, please visit the WDRC’s website.

Third Annual SAP MeetingJune 18-19, 2013

Prof. Gary Amy speaking at the Desalination workshop

2nd Annual SAP Meeting

The third KAUST Industry Collaboration Program (KICP) Research Symposium, entitled “Filling Up the Innovation Pipeline through Academic R&D Collaborations,” will be held at KAUST. All KICP and CIAP partners are invited to attend. The symposium will feature KAUST research on various topics, and WDRC faculty and researchers will present on sustainable wastewater treatment and reuse technologies.

KICP Research SymposiumApril 21-23, 2013

2WDRC News | Spring 2013 wdrc.kaust.edu.sa

WDRC SEED FUND WINNERSThe KAUST Seed Fund is a catalyst for moving technological innovation from the lab to the marketplace, and for helping dreamers become entrepreneurs. The funding—up to $200,000 over 24 months—helps bridge the initial gap at the lab/patent stage of development, and provides support to entrepreneurs when they need it most to increase the likelihood of success.“ www.kaust.edu.sa/economic_development/seedfund/

PROJECT 1: Hybrid Osmosis Process for Water Desalination and Reuse (Osmo H2O)Present conventional desalination technologies involve expensive and energy-intensive processes. A similar situation is faced when a wastewater effluent is treated with advanced technologies to produce high quality water. Therefore, there is a need for a new technology that can recover water from impaired sources, providing a safe and economic supply of fresh water to the increasing population. The team is developing a membrane-based technology to recover fresh potable water from wastewater effluents and seawater, resulting in a 50% reduction of energy consumption in the drinking water facilities and wastewater treatment plants in the GCC region. The proposed system will recover fresh water from wastewater and desalinate seawater in a cost-effective (50% energy savings) manner by integrating forward osmosis with low-pressure reverse osmosis. A functional prototype has already been constructed at the WDRC and recently patented. Initial experiments prove the effectiveness of the method to produce high quality water at lower energy consumption, as recognized in winning the second prize at the 2012 Global Bayer Material Science Competition.

The founding members of Osmo H2O team are Prof. Gary Amy (advisor), Dr. Zhenyu Li (membrane technology), Dr. Lijo Francis (material science), Muhannad Abu-Ghdaib (pilot design and project scale-up), and Rodrigo Valladares (entrepreneurial experience).

PROJECT 2: Multi-Stage Membrane Distillation Desalination (MD Solutions)A team of three WDRC researchers, Ahmad Al-Saadi, Dr. Noreddine Ghaffour, and Dr. Lijo Francis, with extensive industrial and research experience has developed an innovative idea and technical proof of concept of novel multistage membrane distillation (MSMD) unit for water desalination. Their innovative design provides water supply organizations with a low cost, scalable, and environmental friendly solution addressing the shortage of water supply and increasing power demands.

Currently, the increase in water demand is met by conventional energy intensive desalination technologies such as reverse osmosis (RO) and multi-stage flash (MSF). The proposed novel technology called membrane distillation (MD) combines the advantages of both thermal (MSF) and membrane (RO) processes, and it is compact, modular, and simple to operate. It offers additional advantages over RO such as being operated at atmospheric pressure making it cheaper, requiring less pretreatment, and being less prone to scaling and fouling. Unlike RO, MD is not limited by the feed water salinity and produces highly pure water. MD is a thermal process like MSF. However, it can be built at a lower cost using non-expensive polymeric materials that are not susceptible to corrosion. MD energy requirements are lower than MSF since low-grade waste heat, solar, and geothermal energy can drive the process. Also, MD can be integrated with RO or MSF to increase their capacities by further desalting their respective brines, also decreasing the environmental impact.

January 13, 2013: Seed Fund winners

Eighty-six applicants from KAUST and different parts of the region applied in the Fall 2012 Seed Fund Award competition. Nine teams made it to the last round of the competition, and four teams received prestigious Seed Fund Awards. Among the four awarded projects, two are from the WDRC and are summarized below.

3WDRC News | Spring 2013 wdrc.kaust.edu.sa

Officials from MoWE, NWC, SWCC, and KAUST

Prof. Shih and Dr. Nawab signing the KAUST-SGS MoU

During this quarter, we welcomed to our Center the Saudi Geological Survey (SGS), the Ministry of Water and Electricity (MoWE), the National Water Company (NWC), and the Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC), four important entities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The SGS visited KAUST on January 29, 2013 to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the University to formalize a research relationship in the presence of H.E. Minister Ali Ibrahim Al Naimi, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Chairman of the KAUST Board of Trustees, and a member

of the SGS Board; Dr. Zohair bin Abdulhafeez Nawab, President of SGS; and Professor Choon Fong Shih, President of KAUST. Many areas were identified for cooperation between the two institutions, including knowledge transfer, sharing of hydrogeological data for research on groundwater aquifer recharge, geothermal energy as a resource for desalination, and gathering and reviewing geological information on Kingdom coastline areas for their feasibility on subsurface intakes for seawater desalination.

On March 5, 2013, a group of high-ranking officials from the MoWE, SWCC, and NWC visited the WDRC. The delegation included H.E. Engr. Abdullah bin Abdulrahman Al Hussein, Minister of the MoWE; Dr. Ibrahim bin Mohammed Al Saud, Deputy Minister of Water; Dr. Saleh Bin Hussein Al Awaji, Deputy Minister of Electricity; H.E. Dr. Abdulrahman Al Ibrahim, Governor of SWCC; Dr. Loay Ahmed Al Musallam, Executive Chairman of NWC; and many other distinguished guests. The group met with KAUST officials and WDRC faculty, researchers, and students. The NWC and SWCC are both WDRC CIAP partners.

WELCOME SGS, MOWE, NWC & SWCC

The Center co-hosted a workshop at the Jeddah Hilton entitled “Desalination Research Centers, Achievements and Future Trends.” The objective of the workshop was to establish a network to communicate with various regional and international research labs in order to build a base for exchanging experiences of current and future research activities and to explore the possibility of cooperation.

The WDRC hosted the second Thermal Workshop at KAUST entitled “Recent Advances and Challenges in Thermal Desalination.” People from various industries and academic institutions were invited to participate in the expert workshop, which focused on operational and knowledge gaps in thermal desalination that dominate the desalination capacity and market of the Kingdom.

HIGHLIGHTEDWORKSHOPS

Thermal Workshop Desalination WorkshopMarch 12-13, 2013 March 17-18, 2013

Thermal Workshop participants

4WDRC News | Spring 2013 wdrc.kaust.edu.sa

FACULTY Q&ADr. Gary Amy has served as Director of the WDRC and Professor of Environmental Engineering at KAUST since 2009.

Q: What were your goals and visions at the inception of the WDRC?

A: I saw it as an opportunity to create and build a research center in a unified manner from the top down, including the faculty, staff, and laboratory facilities. Most research centers in the world are developed through a bottom-up approach whereby existing resources are leveraged to create somewhat of a ‘virtual center.’ The creation of the WDRC here at KAUST is especially unique from this perspective. The opportunity also enabled the establishment of a framework for a globally recognized research center in water technologies. However, while being a global research center, it is important that the Center interfaces with local stakeholders in the Kingdom such as the Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC), the

National Water Company (NWC), and the Ministry of Water and Electricity (MoWE).

Q: How have your goals and visions changed since then?

A: The major goals for the Center have not changed but have been refined, following increased awareness and becoming more knowledgeable regarding the needs of the Kingdom and GCC region. An example is the realization of the importance of thermal-based desalination technologies as the most widespread technologies for desalination in the Kingdom and the region. As a result, the Center is now seeking to identify ways in which our research can improve the efficiency of thermal desalination technologies in addition to maintaining our original membrane-based research agenda. Fundamentally, the Center’s mission of performing industry-driven research remains unchanged, but the general goals established at the beginning have become more specific. Ultimately, the Center’s ambition has been to achieve a recognizable level of success in the first five years, which we think it has, but also to set the framework for further evolution of the Center in the upcoming second five-year planning cycle.

Q: How do the Center’s researchers contribute to this vision?

A: At inception, the Center had a strategic research agenda that considered a five-year horizon. Each of the faculty members and researchers hired to date has contributed to this agenda. There have been slight adjustments made as faculty with unique skills have joined the WDRC, which has broadened and strengthened the competencies of the Center. To sustain the momentum that the Center has gathered so far, it is important that faculty and researchers be given enough freedom to develop their research within the general plan, allowing them to make significant and meaningful contributions to the research agenda.

Q: What long-term impact do you foresee the WDRC having on the Kingdom?

A: The Center has two flagship projects, the first being low-energy and renewable energy-driven desalination and the second being energy-neutral or energy-positive wastewater treatment and reuse. These projects concern the development and testing of new technologies that we envision reaching commercial application within a five to ten year window. The research is focused on the needs of the Kingdom and GCC region but these projects have global relevance, and the intention is to export them to other markets. The Center is already one of the most recognized water research centers in the Kingdom and the GCC. To achieve this, a significant amount of energy has been put into networking with regional and global academic leaders and research centers, as well as industry, in an effort to develop strong research collaboration networks. These networks also provide the necessary antennae to identify the drivers of new technologies and new trends in water research. It is also essential that the Center’s research agenda embody some degree of flexibility in order to respond to these changes.

Q: How do you see the Center Industry Affiliate Program (CIAP) influencing that vision?

A: The Center conducts industry-driven research, and therefore the role and participation of the CIAP is very important. The partners act as a sounding board and as a catalyst for future directions, and for this reason we value the members in the program. From the outset, the research centers at KAUST were set up to be goal-oriented and mission-oriented and thus applied research is emphasized in the WDRC. The industry-driven research agenda of the Center aligns well with those original ideals.

Prof. Gary Amy

5WDRC News | Spring 2013 wdrc.kaust.edu.sa

ENVIRONMENTAL NANOTECHNOLOGY:RESEARCH GROUP ACTIVITIESThe world is facing water scarcity and energy shortage, two inextricably linked grand challenges of our times. Both water and energy are at the level of national security, and ensuring sustainable water and energy supply requires multidisciplinary scientific and technical expertise.

Widely envisioned as a key technology in the future, nanotechnology—due to its fascinating capability of tuning material’s chemical and physical properties at atomic and molecular levels—provides unprecedented opportunities for solving these grand environmental challenges in a sustainable way.

The WDRC Environmental Nanotechnology (EN) group was established in 2011 by Dr. Peng Wang, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering. The group’s research focuses on ‘Environmental Nanomaterials for Clean Water and Energy Production’. The current activities in the group cover the following three areas:

Nanoporous materialsThe EN group has extensive expertise in designing selective nanosorbent for contaminant removal from water. The

recent focus of the group is on the pore size modulation and multifunctionalization of nanoporous materials, especially carbon-based materials, to maximize their water purification efficiency. Recently, the group, in collaboration with Professor Emmanuel Giannelis at Cornell University, successfully developed a green and scalable method of producing hierarchical porous carbons, which possessed well-defined macropores and interconnected meso- and micropores and which thus combined in one system: improved mass transport facilitated by the macropores and high surface area and pore volume from micro/mesopores. Such hierarchically porous carbons provide better accessibility and active sites for many environmental applications and showed promising performance for water contaminant sorption as well as high CO2

sequestration capacity.

Photocatalysis Solar light is the most

abundant energy source; the solar energy that strikes the earth within two hours is more than the total energy consumption of the entire world in a year. Within a semiconductor-based photocatalysis, solar light is absorbed by the semiconductor to generate excited electrons and holes, which can then be utilized to drive water pollutant oxidation and water reduction to produce hydrogen gas, which is believed ‘fuel in the future.’ TiO2 is often the semiconductor of choice

The WDRC Environmental Nanotechnology group

Clean Water and Energy Production

1. Pore size control and multifunctionalization of nanoporous materials

As selective sorbents and catalysts for water

puri�cation

2. Environmental photocatalysis based on anodized nano-arrays

For water contaminant destruction, water splitting for H2 production

3. Interfacial materials

For oil/water separation, oil spill cleanup, water-collection,

anti-fouling surfaces

Rational Design and Synthesis of Nano-materials

6WDRC News | Spring 2013 wdrc.kaust.edu.sa

Water Desalination and Reuse CenterKing Abdullah University of Science and TechnologyThuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia

Contact: Dr. Shahnawaz Sinhashahnawaz.sinha@kaust.edu.sa+966 (2) 808 4905

because its chemical stability, low cost, and non-toxicity, and the TiO2 based photocatalysis has been employed in many advanced oxidation process (AOP) for water treatment. With a clear aim at pushing the material photo-activity to their theoretical limits, the EN group works on anodized nanostructures of TiO2 as well as Cu2O, a promising new photocatalyst. Very recently, the group successfully produced gold nanoparticle deposited TiO2 nanotube arrays as a visible-light-responsive composite material and a carbon-layer-protected Cu2O nanowire arrays. Both materials generated record-high visible-light photo-activities in their separate categories.

Interfacial materialsAdvanced materials with controllable oil and water wettability have great potential for various advanced applications

in water and energy production processes, such as water collection in thermal desalination, anti-fouling membrane in water filtration, oil water separation, and oil spill cleanup. A suitable affinity of materials or surfaces toward water or oil would optimize the efficiency of these operations. In this regard, the EN group is working on designing suitable surface chemistry combined with rationally-designed surface wettability patterns to achieve desirable wetting behaviors so to enhance water and energy production efficiency. Very recently, the group developed a novel approach of block copolymer grafting to produce smart materials with switchable oil repulsion and oil attraction property, which showed remarkable selectivity toward oil and water on demand.

Some of the EN Group’s work at WDRC has been highlighted by international media, including Discovery News, Nature Middle East, Journal of SPE, and China Science Daily. The EN group aims to become one of the global leaders in the field of environmental nanotechnology in the years to come. For more information about the group, please visit: http://faculty.kaust.edu.sa/sites/pengwang.

STUDENT & POSTDOC UPDATESDr. Krishna Katuri, who works with Prof. Pascal Saikaly, was awarded the 2012 SABIC Post-doctoral Fellowship. Dr. Katuri’s research interests include electro-microbiology, microbiology of electroactive biofilms, anaerobic digestion, bioreactors, and fermentation technology. His research focuses on underpinning anaerobic microbial oxidations for sustainable energy and fuel generation using bio-electrochemical systems. This novel interdisciplinary research tries to link microbiology and electrochemistry with applications in engineered biofilm reactors for renewable

energy generation.

A team from KAUST, including two students and one alumnus from the WDRC, was selected for the regional finals of the 4th Annual Hult Prize. The Hult Prize is the world’s largest student competition and crowdsourcing platform for social good. This year’s Hult Prize is themed around global food security and on how to get safe, sufficient, affordable, and easily accessible food to the people who live in urban slums. The team was chosen from more than 10,000 applicants, comprising over 350 colleges and universities in 150 countries. The KAUST team pitched their idea on March 1 and 2, 2013 in Dubai.

An IDA Student Chapter was formed by students from the WDRC. The International Desalination Association (IDA) student chapter aims to be a local platform for professionals involved in the desalination and water reuse industry to connect and advance their careers. For more information, e-mail: ida@kaust.edu.sa.

A poster competition featuring the research of KAUST graduate students and postdocs was held on January 23, 2013 during the Winter Enrichment Period (WEP). Selected from more than 100 submissions, members of the WDRC took two of the nine awards given. Muhammad Tariq Khan, supervised by Prof. JP Croué, won first prize for PhD students, and Dr. Selvaraj Munirasu, supervised by Prof. Suzana Nunes, won third place for postdocs.