Graduate Chemical Engineers, Shahd Nael Nazzal and Shadi Kamil Hamati, employees at Asset Integrity Engineering (AIE), win awards for their research on using natural, recyclable, reusable and easily available material, fruit peel wastes, to treat produced water.
Nazzal and Hamati, American University of Sharjah (AUS) Alumni, were awarded for their undergraduate research project. The winning team consisting of six senior AUS students, including Nazzal and Hamati, and their project advisors, Dr. Taleb H. Ibrahim and Dr. Nabil AbdelJabbar, were recognized for their excellent research by the following categories of awards:
- SEWA (Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority) – ‘Innovative Students Award’
- BP (British Petroleum) – ‘Respect Award’
The topic of research was ‘Treatment of Produced Water from SNOC (Sharjah National Oil Corporation).’ They won the two awards for their work in studying the ability of fruit wastes to act as adsorbents. The fruit peel wastes could later on be used in a facility that is designed for the treatment of produced water thus providing an environmentally sustainable and economically feasible solution in the treatment of oil industries’ produced water. They also worked on designing a process for the removal of suspended oil particles, dissolved oil particles and heavy metals from produced water that could be implemented in the Oil and Gas industry.
They were awarded by Dr. Rashid Al Leem, Chairman of Sharjah Electricity & Water Authority with the Innovative Students Award at the SEWA main office in Al Khan area in Sharjah on Tuesday, 29th of March 2016.
This ceremony was held as a part of SEWA’s monthly meeting of recognition, and in conjunction with the Water Month (March, 2016). It was organized to honor all working forces in SEWA and contributors to the organization in addition to students who took part in developing research that would help in sustaining the water reserves.
From Left: Shadi Hamati, Dr. Taleb Ibrahim, Dr. Nabil AbdelJabbar, Shahd Nazzal, Rasha Al-Saleh (Team Member) at the SEWA Award Ceremony
Nazzal and Hamati were also honored by the BP representative, Mohammad AlNakhi, Technical Adviser of BP UAE, at the Annual Student Research Award Ceremony which was held at AUS on Tuesday, 12th of April 2016.
The BP Respect Award is one of the award categories of AUS Student Research Award initiative which was developed to honor the innovative research conducted by the students of AUS in various categories. The competition aims at evaluating each project according to the mastery of research and investigation carried out by the students conducting it.
From Left: Kevin Mitchell (AUS Interim Provost), Dina El-Baba (Team Member), Shahd Nazzal, Shadi Hamati, AbdulKarim AlMazmi (Chief Representative and General Manager, BP UAE), Dr. Taleb Ibrahim at the BP Award Ceremony
This is not the first time that AIE Graduate Engineers are recognized for their research projects; three other AUS Alumni and current AIE Engineers received the Annual Student Research BP Award in 2015.