Redesigning Clean Water Supply to Future Cities Through Membrane Technology and IR 4.0

Professor Mohamed Kheireddine Aroua

Associate Dean(Research) and Head       ​​

​Centre for Carbon Dioxide Capture and Utilization

School of Science & Technology

Sunway University

Email: kheireddinea@sunway.edu.my                                                                                          

Professor Mohamed Kheireddine Aroua holds a Degree in Chemical Engineering from Tunisia and a Master in Material Sciences and Engineering from the University of Nancy 1, France. He obtained his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry in 1992 from the University of Nancy I, France.

He joined the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Malaya in 1993 as a lecturer and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2002, then to a Professor in 2007 and to a senior Professor in 2010.

He was appointed as the Deputy Dean of the Institute of Graduate Studies from May 2009 until July 2016 and Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering from 2016 to 2017. In addition, he has been the Head of the Center for Separation Science and Technology (CSST) from 2012 to 2017.

Currently he is a Professor with Sunway University, Malaysia and Lancaster University in UK and was appointed as Honorary Professor at University of Malaya since January 2018. He is also the Associate Dean (Research) at the School of Science and Technology and Head of the Centre for Carbon Dioxide Capture and Utilization (CCDCU) at Sunway University.

He is very active in postgraduate student supervision. So far 27 Ph.D. including 2 Dual PhD and 20 Master students successfully graduated under his supervision and currently he is supervising 7 PhD and 3 Master students.

His research focus on three challenges facing mankind namely water security, energy security, and environment and climate change. More specifically, he is leading research in fundamental and applied separation processes such as CO₂ capture using alkanolamine technology, membrane processes, adsorption, and electrochemical processes using activated carbon and modified activated carbon produced from agriculture waste. He is also active in research related to biodiesel from various feed stocks such as Jatropha seeds and oil, the development of super-adsorbent materials produced from agriculture waste by physical and chemical modifications, CO₂ separation using ionic liquids, and membrane processes for drinking water supply during disasters and to remote villagers.

Professor Mohamed Kheireddine outstanding scientific research generated more than 200 scientific articles in ISI journals and his work was cited more than 8000 times. With an h-index of 44 his work has impacted significantly the field of his research. He has 2 granted patents and 2 patent applications. He was listed by Clarivate Analytics as Top Cited Researcher 2018 in Engineering.

Recently his team developed a solar powered self-cleaning mobile Ultrafiltration (UF) system. The innovative self-cleaning system has already touched and impacted the lives of many people. It was used during the recent severe floods that hit Malaysia to treat flood and river water to produce clean water to flood victims and 6 units were recently installed in remote villages (without access to clean water) in the states of Kelantan, Sarawak and Perak in Malaysia to produce drinking quality water. This work made him the winner of the 2016 University of Malaya’s award of outstanding achievement in the category of community engagement and the project was a winner at the IChemE Global Awards 2018 in Water category.