Dr. Haifa bint Ebrahim: growing importance of producing water in environmentally friendly ways Scientific Forum at the University of Bahrain Calls for Adoption of Renewable Energy in Water Desalination

Sakhir – University of Bahrain

23 March 2023

A scientific forum on water purification at the University of Bahrain called for investing in the development of desalination facilities in the Arab Gulf region and increasing cooperation in the fields of adopting sustainable energy in desalination, especially solar and wind energy.

The Department of Chemical Engineering at the College of Engineering at the University of Bahrain recently organized the “First Water Technology Forum… Modern trends and practical practices” with the participation of a group of specialists and experts in the industrial sector.

The Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Bahrain, Dr. Shaikha Haifa bint Ebrahim Al Khalifa, stressed that water purification research is becoming more important day by day in light of the trend towards using environmentally friendly production methods on one hand, and deepening problem of water scarcity in many countries of the world on the other hand.

She pointed out that the College of Engineering at the University of Bahrain is keen to exercise its research and advisory role towards various urgent research issues, especially with regard to water desalination, as the college is full of professors and experts interested in water purification issues, noting that,  she praised the scientific forum organized by the Department of Chemical Engineering at the college, and the scientific richness that characterized the forum.

For his part, the Head of the Chemical Engineering Department at the College, Dr. Mohamed Ali bin Shams, pointed to the importance of strengthening relations and ties between the industrial sector and the university, as a house of expertise and consultation. He stressed that such events and activities can contribute to finding innovative solutions in the fields of water purification, especially in the Arabian Peninsula, which suffers from scarcity of fresh water, and includes the largest number of desalination plants in the world.

The forum hosted a member of the Board of Directors of the World Desalination Organization Mohammed Abdulkarim Al-Sufi, the former Executive Vice President for Planning and Projects of the Electricity and Water Authority Dr. Khalid Burashid,

Engineer at Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (GPIC) Mohammed Al-Asadi, Head of the Sustainable Development and Governance Department at Aluminium Bahrain (Alba) Ali Abdulshaheed Al-Fardan, and

Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Bahrain Dr. Kamal Sassi.

Al-Sufi gave a historical presentation on water production technologies, the advantages of different methods that amount to 15 methods and viewed environmentally friendly desalination technologies.

Dr. Burashid reviewed a previous experience in the Electricity and Water Authority, through which a Bahraini team was able to improve the efficiency of artesian water purification in one of the desalination plants, and increase production by 16% without increasing the capital cost.

Eng. Al-Asadi reviewed GPIC’s experience in facilitating multi-stage evaporation, which contributes to reducing deposits and metal corrosion, and increasing the life span of production units.

Eng. Ali Alfardan reviewed a simulation experiment to operate a reverse osmosis unit at Alba using solar panels, which concluded that the actual implementation of the experiment saves 20% of the energy required in the desalination plant and reduces carbon emissions by 13 tons per year.  The experiment results showed the investment costs can be recovered within about eight and a half years.

In the last paper at the forum, Dr. Kamal Sassi talked about the optimal designs of salt water purification plants integrated with solar panels and their applicability in the Kingdom of Bahrain.