Qatar Foundation Annual Research Conference Proceedings Volume 2014 Issue 1

The Arabian Gulf, surrounded by deserts, is an ideal marine basin to study the effects of nutrient input from dust on primary productivity. We studied the microbial community composition of the water column and sediment using 16S r-RNA gene sequencing, and the activity of photosynthetic microorganisms using pigment analysis and microsensors measurements in February and October 2013 and February 20 Read More

Since children spend a considerable part of the day at school, classroom indoor air quality (IAQ) is a major contributor to their personal exposure. The geographical location of the school, the proximity of outdoor sources (industry or traffic), construction characteristics (including ventilation/heating system), as well as decorations and consumer products, all contribute to classroom IAQ. Considering the potential he Read More

Atomic nanoclusters exhibit large surface to volume ratio which enhances their ability to interact with external materials, thus, they can be utilized efficiently for catalysts and gas sensing applications. Copper (Cu) nanoclusters are a promising system for gas sensing applications, mainly because of its sensitivity and selectivity for H2S [1,2]. In this work, Cu nanoclusters were synthesized using the dc magnetron sputtering and gas- Read More

Little is known to what extent conditions within hyper-arid mobile dunes are permissive of microbial activity. To inform this question, we report measurements of temperature and humidity from probes initially sunk below the avalanche face of a mobile barchan dune in the Qatar desert, emerging windward after 15 months of deep burial. The observations reveal how random precipitation produces widely diverse humidity Read More

There is mounting evidence that the global warming and, consequently, the climate changes are anthropogenic and attributed to fossil fuel consumption. Therefore, it is mandatory to find alternative solutions that can replace current resources. One of those resources is solar energy, and specifically Photovoltaic solar panels. Qatar is a sun-belt country with daily average solar radiation in the range of 5.1 kWh/m2. Nam Read More

A double stage, low volume particle sampler was used to collect PM10 and PM2.5 aerosol particles, both indoor and outdoor. XRF, SEM/EDS, Micro-Raman and XRD techniques were used to identify both the elemental composition and chemical speciation of particulate matter (PM) of both size fractions. The integration of the above techniques has enabled us to identify the constituents of both the coarse and fine fractions of PM Read More

Background: Microsatellite (Simple Sequence Repeat) markers are very powerful tool especially in plant genome analysis because they are locus-specific, co-dominant, highly polymorphic and highly reproducible. However, in date palm only few microsatellite markers are available worldwide so far. Fortunately, more than 1000 new microsatellite markers were developed recently by a research group in ICARDA based on the d Read More

Graphene Oxide (GO) is a promising material for various applications. The team prepared GO from graphite and studied the interaction with different microorganisms. Anti-microbial properties were detected for the prepared GO. Anti-microbial activities of GO was tested against one eukaryotic fungi (Candida albicans) two prokaryotic bacteria Gram-negative bacilli (Escherichia coli ATCC 41570 and Pseudomonas aeru Read More

Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) nanosensor for ultrasensitive detection of bromate in drinking water: State-of-the-art and prospective Khaled A. Mahmoud Qatar Environment & Energy Research Institute (QEERI), kmahmoud@qf.org.qa Sergey V. Gaponenko B. I. Stepanov Institute of Physics, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Minsk 220072 Belarus, s.gaponenko@ifanbel.bas-net.by The adv Read More

Control of carbon dioxide emissions without significant penalties requires effective CO2 scrubbing from point sources, such as fossil fuel burning power plants, cement factories and steel making. Capturing process is the most costly; hence the research is directed to finding solutions to it. Efficient CO2 scrubbing without a significant energy penalty remains an outstanding challenge for fossil fuel-burning industry where aqu Read More