Capacity Building in Egypt for Enhancing Water Availability, Food Security and Renewable Energy using MOF Adsorption Heat Pumps

Summary

Rising populations, rapid economic development and environmental degradation are reducing water availability in Egypt. By 2025, it is estimated that water supply to reach the scarcity level of 500m3/capita. Also, clean cooling is essential for food security through enhancing agriculture and animal production from greenhouses and dairy farms.

Egypt has abundance of land, sunny weather and high wind speeds, making it ideal for renewable energy projects. To address increasing demand and achieve environmentally sustainable electricity production, Egypt intends to increase electricity generated from renewable sources to 20% by 2022.

However, renewable energy sources are intermittent and depend on weather conditions. Therefore, there is a need to develop energy efficient and cost-effective water treatment/ desalination, cooling and energy storage technologies.

Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are new class of adsorbents with superior properties in terms of exceptionally high porosity, large surface area and high-water uptake capacity. It significantly outperforms conventional adsorbents like silica gel and zeolites by at least an order of magnitude.

With these exceptional properties, MOFs can be used to develop efficient and cost-effective water desalination / treatment, atmospheric water harvesting, cooling and energy storage technologies. This will significantly contribute to alleviate the water problems, food security and renewable energy storage in Egypt.

This project aims to support capacity building at Egypt - Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST) through developing researchers’ skills to carry out high impact research in areas most relevant to Egypt national priorities and engaging with the wider community and policymakers.

This will be achieved through comprehensive knowledge transfer program on MOF adsorption heat pump technologies including training, workshops, seminars and dissemination of findings in academic conferences and journals.

Project objectives

  1. Training researcher from E-JUST on how to identify the best MOFs for the required applications, synthesis of such MOFs, characterise their adsorption and thermophysical properties using the advanced facilities at UoB, and adsorption system development.
  2. Hold a workshop at E-JUST and two webinars for academics, engineers, stakeholders, to highlight the importance of the MOF materials and how they can be used to address Egypt’s national priorities including water, food security and renewables.
  3. In collaboration with E-Just, disseminate the findings through at least one international conference and one high impact journal.
  4. Develop educational materials about MOFs and their application for undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs in Egypt.
  5. Webpage highlighting the potential of MOF materials in addressing challenging demands in Egypt, which will be continuously updated with the relevant literature and latest developments in this field.