NEWS
Employment of Green and Blue Renewable Energy Sources in Water Purification A Scientific Study at UoB Discusses Sustainable Solutions for The Water Desalination Industry
Sakhir – University of Bahrain (Khadijah Abdusalem)
8 June 2023
A scientific study at the University of Bahrain (UoB) recommended achieving sustainability in the desalination industry, by taking advantage of renewable energy sources and energy recovery technologies in desalination plants and reducing the salinity of the water lost from its operations, which usually flows into the sea.
The study – prepared by PhD student in the Environment and Sustainable Development Program at the College of Science, Ali Abdulshahid Fardan – aimed to discuss sustainable solutions for the water desalination industry using renewable energy sources, or what is termed “green energy”, which is clean energy extracted from natural sources, as well as blue energy, which is electric energy created by mixing fresh water with salt water.
The PhD thesis was titled “Latest Solutions for the Green Energy Reverse Osmosis Plant at Alba Smelter”, in which the researcher highlighted the positive environmental results of pushing the production and desalination of water from traditional reliance on fossil fuels to become more sustainable using energy recovery techniques and photovoltaic technology. The study showed that connecting stations to photovoltaic energy sources contributes to covering 24% of the annual energy consumption.
لإhe researcher recommended the need to reduce energy consumption associated with water production, especially in the GCC countries, as they account for 60% of the total desalination plants in the world, and their dependence on desalinated water reaches 99% in daily use.
The examination committee recently discussed the researcher in his thesis, and the committee consisted of: Professor of Applied Physics at the College of Postgraduate Studies at the Arabian Gulf University, Professor Dr. Wahib Issa Al-Nasser, as an external examiner, and Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at UoB, Dr. Shaker Mohammed Haji, as an internal examiner. The study was supervised by: Dr. Hanan Mubarak Buflasa, and Professor of Water Technology at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, Dr. Philip Davies, as an Assistant Supervisor.
