United States Patent Office registered a patent to the Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry at IAU, Dr. Asma Al-Sharif, in field of Clean Energy for her innovative method of producing nano-sorbent material consisting of carbon nanotubes grafted with acrylic acid and an acrylamide polymer.
Dr. Asmaa Al-Sharif indicated that the idea of the invention includes producing and preparation of advanced nanomaterials consisting of carbon nanotubes grafted with acrylic acid and acrylamide polymer to act as nano filters remove and absorb toxic phenolic materials from industrial wastewater which pose a threat to living organisms, pointing out that the toxic phenolic compounds is one of the most important serious problems of industrial wastewater, as it is used in many different industries, and therefore it is necessary to get rid of these compounds for avoiding health risks.
She explained that this technology is promising for water desalination and purification companies and industrial wastewater plants, and it saves effort and time, highly effective and law cost. Thus, it achieves sustainable development and production of treated water, indicating that the most prominent feature of this invention beside low cost it is easily to be prepared in research laboratories compared to preparing other nanomaterials, which need expensive devices and equipment and complex preparation methods.
Al-Sharif confirmed the possibility of benefiting from these nano-filters several times and recycling them while maintaining their high efficiency and thus achieving sustainable development and production of treated water, which has a significant environmental impact, with a great possibility to apply this invention due to its environmental importance in production of treated water along with economic cost.
It is noteworthy that Al-Sharif, who obtained the patent, is an associate professor of organic chemistry at Imam Abdul Rahman bin Faisal University and obtained a specialized certificate in clean energy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States of America. She has many published research articles in field of organic preparations and clean energy. She worked as a visiting researcher and participated at many conferences in several countries around the world.
