An ongoing scientific project by a Jordanian researcher may lead to the production of a clean, yet cheap, alternative for fuel derivatives to run various types of engines.
The project, conceived by Mohammad Hamdan, a University of Jordan (UJ) professor, is one of 23 research projects that qualified for funding from the EU Support to Research and Technological Development and Innovation Initiatives and Strategies Project in Jordan (SRTD).
The names of the selected researchers, who qualified to receive grants ranging between JD5,000 and JD15,000, were announced during a seminar on Thursday, titled, "EU- Jordan Research: Opportunities for Funded Collaboration".
The initiative seeks to promote opportunities for Jordanian researchers to participate in EU-funded research programmes and provide senior university management with a high-level understanding of why the opportunity exists, who can participate, and what benefits can be derived.
Hamdan told The Jordan Times that he came up with the idea due to the rising prices of oil, and amidst intentional efforts to find alternatives for oil.
"The project is about breaking up water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen and collecting the resulting gases, which make an excellent, clean combustible mixture that can be used to power vehicles without the need for major modifications on existing engines," Hamdan said.
"All we need is to design a gas regulator, which we already did at the UJ, to complete the water molecule and combustion process," he added.
Hamdan said the project is still in its preliminary stages, noting that other concerned groups in Japan performed this process in the past, but it was not for scientific research.
"We will carry out the simulation work using highly sophisticated software, and once we are done with simulation, we will go to the next step, which is the practical phase, and test it on engines to check engine power, gas combustion, fuel consumption and the pollution rate," he added.
Also among the winning projects is one by Jordan University of Science and Technology researcher Zahir Rawajfih, which focuses on utilising natural minerals found in the Kingdom's soil for the removal of pollutants from industrial waste effluents.
"The research is about removing organic pollutants from wastewater discharged by industrial establishments, such as the Jordan Petroleum Refinery Company, Al Hussein Thermal Power Station or the Khirbet Al Samra Wastewater Treatment Plant," Rawajfih told The Jordan Times yesterday.
"This process is globally known as the adsorption treatment system, which uses an ion exchange process to recover spent acids from acid waste streams," he said, explaining that ion exchange is a chemical reaction where an ion from any solution is exchanged for an oppositely charged ion attached to an immobile solid particle.
The process is completely environment friendly and replaces other chemical materials that harm the environment.
"Several minerals like zeolite, clay, kaolinite or even oil shale, exist in vast quantities in the country's soil, and can by nature adsorb organic pollutants from wastewater," Rawajfih said.
"We hope that once we conclude this scientific study, the results will be utilised at the local, regional and international levels," he added.
Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Walid Maani, Patrick Renauld, head of the EC Delegation to Jordan and Anwar Al Battikhi, secretary general of the Higher Council for Science and Technology (HCST), attended yesterday's event.
"There is a history of scientific research in the Kingdom that should be a base to build on and expand, and as an experience from which lessons should be learned, both positive and negative," Maani told the participants.
He called on researchers to focus on scientific research of local, regional and international interest in order to address challenges facing the globe in many sectors such as medicine, economics and the environment.
"The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research is prioritising scientific research by giving it prominence in its strategic thinking and planning, and increasing funding opportunities for researchers. We aim to make substantive support of research a top priority," he added.
Meanwhile, Battikhi noted that Jordan has one of the highest percentages of people with higher education qualifications in the region, but added that it is still hard to attract significant funding to local universities in order to keep the best researchers in the country.
"Currently, less than 0.35 of our GDP is spent on research and technological development. The majority of these funds are provided by the government," he said, adding that over the past 10 years, the country spent over JD3 million in funding research development, with JD190,000 spent on 17 projects since the beginning of 2009.
Battikhi said commercialisation and marketing of research community output is another key problem in the local R&D and innovation sector, pointing out that a large number of researchers only focus on publishing their articles.
"Jordanian professors and researchers need to transform their research results into marketable products and services in order to contribute to building up the knowledge-based economy in the Kingdom," he added.
The EU has allocated four million euros for the SRTD project to help the innovation and R&D sectors of the Jordanian economy. The project seeks to increase the Kingdom's scientific and technological capacity by fostering research and innovation and by accelerating its integration into the European research area.
The HCST and Jordan Enterprise co-fund some of the activities implemented by the project.
"If there is a threat associated with globalisation, in fact, it is that we don't make the changes the process requires: Changes to our skills, our knowledge base, our education and our way of collaborating," Renauld noted at the one-day event.
"This is why we need to concentrate more on two areas: People and facilities. No country can realistically plan to become more innovative without the right people and the right tools for them to use."
© Jordan Times 2009
