Harvesting salt from desalination waste, developing marine oil filtration prototypes that combat oil spills and assessing the life cycle of Sharjah’s water pipes were three of the outstanding projects by American University of Sharjah (AUS) students that won top honors at the 10th Sharjah Sustainability Award recently.
Organized by the Environment and Protected Areas Authority in Sharjah (EPAA), the awards program invites school and university students to develop their ideas on ways to improve their environment and to create and implement sustainable environmental solutions to urgent problems. The competition included projects from 150 schools and 180 university students from various disciplines and educational establishments.
Nada Ahmed, an architecture student graduating in Spring 2022, won the award under the architecture category for her graduation project “Saltscapes.” In her project, Ahmed investigated ways to recycle, reuse and harvest salt from desalination waste.
“The project started with an initial study of infrastructure systems in the UAE then focused on desalination plants. I looked at the environmental, economic and social aspects of this industry. The main environmental impact comes from dumping highly concentrated saline discharge into the sea, which reduces oxygen intake in the sea ecosystem, increases water temperature because of the high salinity of seawater and contaminates freshwater reserves,” said Ahmed.
Her project offers a novel solution to these problems. “In my project, the desalination building acts as a salt harvesting machine where the salt is deposited on the removable threads surrounding it, making the building itself performative and constantly changing. The project focuses on creating a passive system to mitigate the effects of human activities on the environment. It combined my two passions, design and sustainability. My proposed design actually worked, and I was able to test it on miniature physical models. So, receiving this award is a sign that maybe one day this idea can be implemented,” she said.
During her university years, Ahmed was an active advocate for sustainability and the protection of the environment. She worked for two consecutive semesters as an EcoRep at AUS. The EcoReps program is one of AUS’ most important sustainability initiatives, engaging students in promoting sustainable practices on campus and providing a link between AUS Sustainability, the university’s body responsible for campus sustainability, and the student community.
“Being an EcoRep was one of the most rewarding experiences of my undergraduate studies at AUS. I was mostly in charge of producing digital and media content to promote the work of AUS Sustainability. We also planned virtual events and meet-ups and created infographic content for students. Spring 2021 was especially rewarding for EcoReps because we were able to contribute to AUS receiving the Silver STARS rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education,” said Ahmed.
Designing and manufacturing marine oil filtration prototypes won mechanical engineering student team Omar Matar, Mohammed Sumar and Mazin Mohammed Faris “The Sharjah Sustainability Award for Outstanding Team.”
“In the last six months, our team focused on researching the many types of oil spills and their environmental effects, leading us to create systems that separate the different classes of oil from marine water in an effort to reduce the adverse impact on the ecosystem. For our research, we received support from the AUS Undergraduate Research Fund, which helped us work on the prototypes and test them inside the UAE. We aim to expand our research by testing different mesh sizes, chemical coating compositions, and relative boat designs to create a reasonable prototype that can effectively clean up oil spills,” said Matar.
He added: “We are proud of our work, and we are very happy with the results of our project. Participating in the EPPA awards felt like a perfect opportunity because their main objective was to create a design that can benefit the environment, which aligned very well with our project idea.”
Matar noted that university students, as scholars and members of the community, play a vital role in the promotion of sustainability.
“I feel that it is my responsibility as a senior mechanical engineering student to bring awareness to the ecological issues of today, such as climate change, oil spills and rising sea levels. In terms of promoting sustainability within the community, I believe that it is our role as the future generation to be well-informed about the dangers of neglecting the environment. I hope our project can bring the issue of sustainability to light within our community of AUS students and inspire future teams to work together on more sustainable, innovative solutions to reverse the environmental damage that has been done to our planet,” he said.
Winning first place under the category of industrial processes were construction management graduate students Ahmad El Masri, Mazhd Shaban and Ibrahim Abu Laila.
Their project consisted of an assessment of the environmental impact of the life cycle of water distribution pipes in the City of Sharjah.
“The current method used in assessing the environmental impact of pipe neglects some vital life cycle stages such as operation, demolition and waste processing. This may deceptively underestimate the actual impact of the pipeline implementation and lead to a less sustainable system. The main inspiration of the project was to develop a holistic life cycle using a sustainable approach in the selection of pipe materials for water distribution systems in Sharjah, and eventually in the UAE. The project advocates for meeting the 14th UN Sustainable Development Goal ‘Sustainable Cities and Communities’,” said El Masri.
He added: “We chose to enter the EPAA Awards because we saw that our project could help decision makers in the UAE choose the most optimal pipe material to mitigate their environmental impact and increase the overall sustainability of their life cycle. We recognized that this competition could help us reach our target audiences, which are government officials and decision makers.”
AUS is widely recognized for its sustainability initiatives. The university is currently developing its first comprehensive Climate Action Plan with the goal to reduce carbon emissions. The plan further aligns the university’s sustainability efforts with the UAE’s Net Zero by 2050 strategic initiative announced in October 2021. AUS is also a member of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), and has earned a Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS) Silver award for sustainability in higher education from AASHE. In 2020, AUS became the Gulf region’s first university to begin to ban single-use plastics across its campus. Additionally, the university’s Engineering and Sciences Building received a highly sought-after 2 Pearl rating by Estidama, a sustainable development initiative of the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council. AUS was also the recipient of the Green Audit Award as part of the Abu Dhabi Environmental Agency’s Sustainable Campus Initiative for university students.
For more information about AUS and its sustainability initiatives, visit www.aus.edu/sustainability.
