Qatar Foundation Annual Research Conference Proceedings Volume 2014 Issue 1

Nanocomposites are commonly used in many applications and new processing techniques are required to improve mechanical and physical properties of these materials. Graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) have high aspect ratio and can maximize stress transfer in the composite. GNPs were added to linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) at different weight percentage and different feeding and extruder speeds. 1,2,4,6,8 an Read More

Mercury is one of the most detrimental by-products of industrial activities such as fossil fuel combustion and mining. In this study, photocatalytic reduction of mercury (II) to elemental mercury in two types of titanium dioxide (TiO2) was investigated. Photocatalysis involves a material's ability of creating an electron-hole pair after its exposure to solar radiation with photon energy higher than that of the applied photocatalyst, r Read More

The deposition behavior of asphaltic material from Abu Dhabi crude oil induced by electrodeposition onto graphite electrodes in direct current (DC) electric fields was investigated experimentally. A mixture of dead crude oil and synthetic brine of 280k ppm salinity was utilized. Two electrodes were immersed in the crude oil sample and a DC current with three current densities of 10, 20, and 30 A/m2 was applied. The electrode Read More

The Arab States of the Gulf (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates) are rapidly developing and facing an increasing human population with certain insufficiencies in water and energy. They have also developed very high per capita energy consumption rates depending on fossil fuel that requires per contra a real contribution to minimize carbon dioxide emissions and air pollution. Patterns of energy use in b Read More

This study is about a two-stage stochastic LNG inventory routing and scheduling problem under weather disruptions which can cover all contract durations including long-term, short-term and spot demand. We consider a fleet of heterogeneous LNG carriers with partial tank filling capability of cargoes to travel multiple customers in routes. In this case, as it has to satisfy numerous customers in a route, the sailing time of an assi Read More

Power consumption and energy density, energy consumption per unit volume, for power consuming devices has sharply increased in the last 50 years. Moreover, further advances and miniaturization of electronic components have led to increased energy density in the electronic equipment that necessitates better cooling strategies of these systems. As computers became larger and more complex, cooling of the active com Read More

This study was made possible by the Best Environment Research Award granted to NPRP 09-546-2-206 at the QF Annual Research Forum in 2011. The disappearing Barchan dunes are the sole habitat to the eastern sandfish Scincus mitranus in Qatar. We hypothesized that each dune represents its own self-contained ecosystem, acting as an island habitat to the S. mitranus. For the first time in Qatar, a total of 108 san Read More

Membrane technologies such as Ultrafiltration (UF), Nanofiltration (NF) and Reverse Osmosis (RO) have found widespread applications all over the world especially for water treatment and desalination. One of the keys to the development of UF/NF/RO membrane technology has been in terms of creating better filtration technologies to separate inorganic and organic substances from solution in a liquid. Great advances in UF/NF/R Read More

The world harvest of wild truffles dropped significantly from thousands of tons during the last century while the truffle international market continuously growing. Desert truffles have been known to be edible for human for 3000 years (Chang & Hay 1997). Belonging to the genus Terfezia and Tirmania they are native to Qatar and are adapted to the desert environment. These fungi are also mycorrhizal - they grow in a mu Read More