Qatar Foundation Annual Research Conference Proceedings Volume 2014 Issue 1

Background Marine phytoplankton form the basis of the marine food chain and are essential for the normal functioning of ecosystems. Any disturbance to this component, due to the release and accumulation of toxic compounds can have an impact on higher trophic levels. In this study, we investigate the impact of toxicants on the microalgae isolated from Qatari seawater and cultured under controlled laboratory conditi Read More

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to sequence and annotate the genomes of the entire spix's macaw population "the world's most endangered parrot" at AWWP (of Al Wabara Wildlife Preservation). This data would be used to identify Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNPs) that would later be used in population studies of this species. The results would be used to guide future breeding programs to increase the g Read More

In this study sandwich-walled cylindrical shells with aluminum pyramidal truss core of constant curvature suitable for functional applications were fabricated employing an interlocking fabrication technique for the metallic core. The skins were made of carbon-fiber reinforced composites and co-cured with the metallic truss core. Thereafter, axial compression tests on some representative samples were carried out to investiga Read More

Oxide semiconductors have been widely used in the area of sensors, energy conversion, and environmental cleanup technologies; because of their high multifunctional photo-activities. However, the overall performance of oxide semiconductors is influenced by their photocatalytic activities which are highly dependent on physical properties such as crystallinity, surface area, morphology (e.g., shape and porosity), etc. Thus, u Read More

Background Increasing renewable electricity leads to moments of overproduction coupled to points in time for which not enough production is available to fulfill the needs. In a scenario of 100% renewable energy, about 20% of the yearly production will need to be stored to keep the system in balance. Since the Antwerp-Rotterdam-Rhine-Ruhr (ARRR) cluster is the European region where the highest CO2-emissions are measu Read More

Educational buildings form a major part of public buildings in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) as is true for many Middle Eastern countries in the region. As a result of the rapid growth in the KSA, prototype educational buildings are designed with little or no effort towards standards of energy efficient design, and therefore are considered to be one of the highest energy consumers in the country. Educational buildings are uniqu Read More

The role of using Forward Osmosis (FO) or Nano filtration (NF) as a pre-treated method to the existing MSF desalination plants is to reduce divalent ions which cause hard scale deposition at elevated temperature. The separation of divalent ion enables to increase the desalination process temperature greater than 110 0C which consequently increases the plant performance, increase the productivity as well as reduce the Read More

A great challenge for this century lies in cleaning-up the wastewater generated during industrial, domestic and agricultural activities before being released, into the aquatic environment, or reused for another purpose e.g. irrigation. Phenolic compounds among the various organic contaminates found in wastewater require special attention because of their toxic effect on humans and the environment. Their presenc Read More

Desalinated seawater is the primary source of drinking water in Qatar. Among all present desalination technologies, reverse osmosis (RO) has been demonstrated as one of the most feasible processes. However, the main limitation with RO and other membrane-based techniques is costly operation and maintenance associated with membrane scaling, fouling, and degradation. Advanced membranes that enable ultrafast p Read More

Dispersed water droplets in organic liquids are commonly encountered in the oil, chemical and biochemical industries. A typical example is the separation of dispersed water drops in crude oil, in order to prevent catalyst fouling, viscosity and volume increase, and to meet quality specifications of the crude oil. Water drops can be removed from a continuous oil phase by various techniques, such as chemical demul Read More