The goal of this proposed project is to develop technologies that can utilize enzymes and deep eutectic solvents (DES) to enhance the kraft pulping process to reduce chemical consumption and thermal energy while increasing pulp yield, resulting in improved overall process efficiency and reduced overall carbon intensity of the wood pulping process 

This awarded Faculty Research and Creative Activities Award (FRACAA) project proposes a systemic approach to developing nature-based deep eutectic solvents (NADES) to establish proof of concept on the design of environmentally friendly novel biomass delignification alternatives for paper and pulping processes.

This project is on seeking ways to create more cost-effective, fast-charging and high-energy lithium-ion batteries for use in electric vehicles and other consumer products such as drones and portable devices.

Solvents develop a pivotal role in the pharmaceutical industry considering that they may account up to 90% of drug delivery operations. The development of new solvents for pharmaceutical applications, especially for active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), is a pivotal task in order to improve API purification by crystallization, to develop API controlled release applications, to increase API active concentration (i.e. bioavailability), and thus to design more efficient drug delivery methods. Therefore, the design and selection new solvents are required for developing sustainable pharmaceutical processes considering the large quantities of solvents required for APIs production and purification, which in turns leads to the very large E-factor for pharmaceutical industries. We recently launched a project on developing novel solvents to tackle this problem. 

In the last few years I have been leading curiosity driven projects on the field of deep eutectic solvents (DES) and natural deep eutectic solvents (NADES), which are produced by mixing ionic liquids and either with organic or naturally occurring solvents.

By studying DES in my research portfolio, I intend to take the advantage of ionic liquid molecular structures and improve their targeted properties (e.g. viscosity, diffusion and manufacturing cost) in order make them even better solvents. DES are a mixture of two or more components with a melting point lower than either of its individual components, which are typically obtained by mixing a quaternary ammonium halide salt, an hydrogen bond acceptor, with an hydrogen bond donor molecule, which should be able to form a complex with the halide, leading a significant depression of the freezing point. I managed to publish numerous articles on this topic and they are getting highly cited due to the fascinating properties that we have presented in these articles, such as high carbon dioxide sorption performance and tunable viscosity profiles. Uniqueness of our work with NADES is it includes combination of advanced measurements (sorption, viscosity, corrosion etc…) and molecular simulations (DFT and MD) that are used in great harmony to highlight how these materials work function; such combinations of research techniques are quire rare in open literature. With these work, we contributed to unlocking process of the potential of DES for their utilization in various industrial applications and these solvents has started to seriously being considered for acid gas removal process applications.

There have been numerous projects that I led as LPI in the past few years. In these projects we designed, synthesized, characterized and tested gas adsorption performances of dozens of novel covalent organic polymers at wide process conditions including high pressures up to 250 bars. During these years, we also worked with different micro- and meso- porous materials including MOFs, COFs, zeolites, hydrotalcites and some other porous inorganic materials for their detailed CO2/N2/H2/CH4 capture and storage performances for either benchmarking or comparison purposes. Total amount of project grant that I acquired in three different projects are ~$2M and I led all these projects as LPI, which were funded by QNRF NPRP program.

Acid Gas Removal by Ionic Liquids: an Experimental and Computational Approach:

In this project we investigate series of different ionic liquids from different families on their application to toxic gas absorption (e.g. SOx, NOx, CO2 etc…) vie combined experimental and theoretical (DFT, MD, MC) approaches. Funding for this project is provided by Spanish National Secretariat for Research and Development, Ministry of Economy. (Role is PI, Funding amount 60,000 Euro)

Investigation on Gas Hydrates Thermodynamics and Kinetics: Experimental and Simulation Approach. There are three different hydrates projects we have been dealing with. In these project we design, synthesize and characterize novel thermodynamic and kinetic inhibitors to avoid hydrate problems in pipelines. By conducting state of the art computational techniques (DFT and MD) we seek understanding on how the newly proposed inhibitors work in various different hydrate systems. We also conduct experiments on obtaining the hydrate equilibrium curve with and without inhibitors and the effect of synergent materials. Funding Agency for these projects are Qatar National Research Fund. I’ve led two projects as LPI and one project as PI. (Funding amounts: $1M, $0.9M and $0.5M)

Design of Novel Catalysts and Processes for Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Conversion from Micro- to Macroscale. This is a special proposal award by QNRF as an exceptional NPRPX project. I manage the efforts that are related to DFT modeling of the complex metal surfaces and the potential reaction routes on CO2 conversion in the case of CO2 is exposed on the different metal surfaces. I participate in this project as PI and the total budget of the project is $4.5M.