Researchers from KAUST’s Water Desalination and Reuse Center (WDRC) have taken both first and second place in the worldwide “Help to Avoid Desertification” idea contest, sponsored by Bayer MaterialScience.
The contest, launched as part of Bayer’s InnovationsKraftWerk initiative, offered a total of €15,000 in prize money to the most innovative ideas from all around the world for tackling the global challenge of desertification. The winners were announced on June 29.
Our very own Noura Shehab, a PhD candidate in the WDRC, co-advised by Prof. Gary Amy and Prof. Pascal Saikaly, topped more than 95 submissions to take first place for her proposal, “The End of Desertification – A Novel & Sustainable Technology for the Middle East and North Africa Arid Lands” (see Figure 1 below), winning her a prize of €7,000.
Winning second place was a team, also directed by Prof. Amy, made up of engineering specialists Rodrigo Valladares Linares and Muhannad Abu-Ghdaib, and post docs Zhen-Yu Li and Chun-Hai Wei. Their proposal for a “Hybrid membrane system for impaired water recovery, energy production, and salt-tolerant crop harvesting in water-scarce regions” (see Figure below), was awarded a prize of €4,000.
Both winners have been invited to visit the Bayer MaterialScience headquarters in Leverkusen, Germany in September.
The Lens congratulates these young researchers on their success and we look forward to following the progress of these projects, which are exemplary of the potential that our University’s research has in solving some of the major regional and global challenges.
1 Comment
A wonderful achievement by a wonderful team of people. Congratulations.