U.S.-Egypt Workshop: Innovative Treatment Technologies for Water, Wastewater, Sludge and Other Contaminated Waters, May 2007, Cairo, Egypt

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

0646801 Cooper This award supports a "US-Egypt Workshop on Innovative Technologies for Water, Wastewater, Sludge and Other Contaminated Waters" to be held in Cairo, Egypt in May 2007. The organizers are Dr. William Cooper, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California at Irvine and Dr. Hussein Abdel-Shafy, National Research Center, Cairo, Egypt. The workshop will include scientists in multidisciplinary areas from several U.S. universities and from several universities and research institutes in Egypt. Other countries invited to participate include Tunisia and Morocco. The objectives are to establish long-term collaborative research projects between U.S. scientists and those from Egypt and other countries in the region. The program will include presentations and discussions of recent advances in treatment processes and concepts and their application to the treatment of waters for various uses. The workshop will provide adequate and designated time for participants to get together in informal groups and learn from each other. From the presentations and detailed discussions throughout the duration of the workshop, longer term collaborative initiatives will be identified by the participants. Technical Merit: There are many natural and man-designed water treatment processes that have been and are being developed in the U.S. and in Egypt, but in many cases the implementation of these processes is slow for technical and management reasons. The participants will share information and ideas related to the fundamental chemistry, biology and engineering of different processes and share ideas of how these processes can be implement these in the two countries. Broader Impact: Water re-use is of significant value, especially for countries with limited water resources and with increasing populations such as Egypt and the U.S., as well as most Middle East countries. Developments in this field can help reduce water demand on fresh water resources and also reduce water pollution. At least six students in U.S. universities will participate in the workshop and will benefit from the experience of the researchers and will learn about new innovative processes and about cooperation on international environmental problems. The workshop report will focus on recommendations for future collaborations, and will include copies of the oral and poster presentations. This project is being supported under the US-Egypt Joint Fund Program, which provides grants to scientists and engineers in both countries to carry out these joint scientific activities. Partial support is provided by NSF's Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems.