FEATURES
PROSPECTING THE BIOFUEL POTENTIAL OF THE UAE’S ‘ALLIG’ DATE SEED The date palm is the iconic plant of the UAE. Its slender trees dot every neighborhood and its fruits are synonymous with Emirati hospitality. Beyond providing beauty and nourishment, scientists believe the crop can also be a source of energy and greater environmental wellbeing for the UAE. Reusing waste is considered an important part of protecting the environment and is of particular concern for the UAE, as it has one of the highest waste per capita rates in the world. In Abu Dhabi alone in 2018, total waste was reported at more than 9.8 million tons, of which agricultural waste accounted for 13%. In the same year, the UAE Cabinet passed a federal draft law for integrated waste management that mandated the separation of agricultural waste and supported its use to produce fertilizer, biogas, and bioenergy. With about 40 million date trees producing enough fruit to place the UAE among the world’s top 10 date producers, a team of researchers, led by Dr. Emad Elnajjar, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU), is exploring date seed waste as a potential biofuel source. The UAE’s date fruit industry produces approximately 1 million tons of date seed waste yearly. Some of this date seed waste is used to make products like animal feed, beverages, and water purification material, but the rest is discarded. Given the composition of date seeds – more than 60% carbohydrate,
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approximately 12% fat, and 5% protein – the research team believes it may be more suitably used to create biofuel. “Worldwide, fossil fuel depletion and accompanying environmental problems, like the increasing presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, have resulted in the need for sustainable and environmentally friendly sources of energy. Within the UAE itself, there is an increasing focus on channeling waste that would otherwise be sent to landfill into meeting energy needs. With dates representing a major crop in the UAE, we believed it was worthwhile to explore the energy potential of date seeds,” explained Dr. Elnajjar. Over the past decade, the UAE has been working towards increasing the share of renewable and alternative energy in its oil and gas dominant energy mix, beginning with the UAE Vision 2021 target of generating 27% of national energy requirements from clean energy sources. The UAE Energy Strategy 2050, launched in 2017, has a larger goal of 50% clean energy, of which 44% is to come from renewable sources like solar and biofuel, and 6% is to come from nuclear power.
