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DR. ABDUL GHANI OLABI - ADAPTING MECHANICAL ENGINEERING TO ACHIEVE GREATER SUSTAINABILITY
For the curious problem-solver, there can be no better field of study than mechanical engineering (ME) as it can be applied to so many sectors and issues.
That is what Dr. Abdul Ghani Olabi, Professor of Sustainable and Renewable Energy Engineering and Director of the Sustainable Energy and Power Systems Research Center at the University of Sharjah (UoS), believes and embodies. His experience in ME has enabled him to contribute innovative solutions to address humanity’s most pressing needs – sustainability and renewable energy (RE) – through cutting-edge research and innovation in fuel cells, energy storage, carbon capture, and biogas production.
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Recalling his earliest introduction to ME, Dr. Olabi said, “When I was a child in Damascus, my father had a car parts shop, and my grandfather had factories. I would come home from school and spend time with them, fascinated by their mechanical products and processes. When I was older, our school used to take us on a field trip each semester to see an industry, like machining. There, I saw how important industrial devices were to society, and found them complex but interesting. That is why I decided I would also work in the field that produced and maintained those devices – mechanical engineering.”
To Dr. Olabi, ME represented an understanding of the devices and technologies that make the world run, and an opportunity to contribute to innovation that could advance human progress.
“Mechanical engineering is the mother of engineering, in the same way that physics is the mother of science. Physics provides all the laws that govern our world, and ME translates those laws into engineering. When you study ME, you gain a foundational training that you can apply to so many industries and problems. You can build on your ME foundation to contribute to nearly any sector, as I have done with sustainability and renewable energy” Dr. Olabi shared.
In 1979, Dr. Olabi enrolled in the Damas University in Syria to study ME, gaining his bachelor’s degree in 1984. After working in education for a few years, he joined the Italian automobile manufacturer, Fiat, where he worked as a mechanical engineer at their research center in Orbassano, Italy. It was there that Dr. Olabi discovered his passion for RE fuel systems and storage, which drives him to this day.
“At Fiat I was working in design and modelling and came to be involved in Fiat’s car fueling system development for hydrogen and other alternative fuel systems. This was something that really appealed to me, though at the time we did not understand climate change like we do now. Even then I could see the value in developing a car that ran on alternative RE fuel,” he recalled.
After working at Fiat for four years, Dr. Olabi decided to pursue more advanced studies. He enrolled in Dublin City University in Ireland, gaining his Master’s in mechanical engineering in 1990, followed by a PhD.
Upon graduation with his doctorate in 1993, Dr. Olabi was hired by Dublin City University as a member of the ME faculty, where he remained from 2002 to 2013. Soon after joining, he established the Sustainable Energy and Environmental Protection (SEEP) Conference to provide researchers and practitioners with a forum to share their recent developments on the topic.
Explaining the impetus behind establishing the conference, Dr. Olabi said, “Engineers can move from one sector to another, especially when they see a problem they feel strongly about. I believe in the importance of sustainability through the advancement of sustainable or renewable energy, so I focused my ME research on it, and I established SEEP because I felt we needed to think about the environment, and a major way to protect the environment is to develop and use RE.” There have since been 13 conferences of SEEP.
During his time at Dublin City University, Dr. Olabi began to make great strides in his hydrogen fuel cell research. In 2012, he filed his first patent for an innovative use of a foam membrane in a hydrogen fuel cell to reduce cost and improve efficiency.
- Dr. Abdul Ghani Olabi, Director of the Sustainable Energy and Power Systems Research Center and Professor of Sustainable and Renewable Energy Engineering at University of Sharjah
Fuel cells are devices that use chemical energy to produce electricity. In hydrogen fuel cells, the cell is supplied with hydrogen and oxygen, which are passed through a specialized membrane to extract an electron from hydrogen, which produces electricity. While some fuel cells are built to rely on provided hydrogen, Dr. Olabi has been working on fuel cells that produce their own hydrogen from renewable energy.
This requires the use of an electrolyzer device, which uses electricity to break down hydrogen dioxide into its component elements of oxygen and hydrogen. The low-temperature electrolyzer devices typically used in automobiles – the proton exchange membrane – are very costly and not very fuel-efficient. Dr. Olabi and his collaborators sought to remedy these shortcomings by redesigning one of the principal components of the electrolyzer, the flow plate, which separates each cell in the electrolyzer stack.
Dr. Olabi shared, “The chemical reaction in a fuel cell transforms oxygen and hydrogen to produce electricity and also produces water, but that water reduces the energy efficiency of the cell. To reduce that effect, we decided to replace the expensive flow plate with a special foam material that could produce the same function while removing the water. We did modeling, simulation, and experimental testing on our design, and found that it improved energy efficiency by 20-25%, allowing our device to be much cheaper than the conventional ones.” By 2016 the research team had been awarded patent protection by European, British, American, and international patenting offices for their innovation.
“As engineers, when we want to innovate, we look at every component within a device. We try to see where we can make improvements to the existing design or even suggest new designs and components. That is why we are continuing work on improving the hydrogen fuel cell and have filed three further patents that can achieve 10-15% further efficiency,” he said.
In 2013 Dr. Olabi joined the University of the West of Scotland as a professor and founding head of its Institute of Engineering and Energy Technologies. During that time, he expanded his work in biogas production and began working in solar and energy storage systems, which he continues to explore today.
In 2018 he published a paper titled “Pre-treatment methods for production of biofuel from microalgae biomass” in the journal Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, which has 43 citations on SciVal. The paper deals with a mechanical pretreatment method proposed by Dr. Olabi and his collaborators to improve the production of biogas from algae.
In biogas production, the algae-based biomaterial is exposed to a bacteria sludge in a low-oxygen environment, where the bacteria consume the biomaterial to produce biogas. That biogas is then collected and used like any natural gas to produce electricity.
“We examined the biogas production process and its components and realized that algae are very fibrous, and those fibers need to be broken down so the bacteria can consume more material and produce more biogas. In response to this, we designed a new mechanical treatment for biomass material that breaks down the fiber before we add the sludge to generate the biomass, to ensure more of it can be consumed by the bacteria. This has increased the biogas yield by 20-25%,” Dr. Olabi shared.
In 2018, Dr. Olabi became Professor and Department Head of Sustainable and Renewable Energy Engineering at UoS and Visiting Professor at Aston University. Since then, Dr. Olabi has been working to capitalize his focus on sustainable energy and the environment and the UAE’s focus on RE and sustainability.
Over the past 15 years, the UAE has been ramping up its development and integration of RE, with increasingly ambitious RE integration targets. UAE
While some fuel cells are built to rely on provided hydrogen, Dr. Olabi has been working on fuel cells that produce their own hydrogen from renewable energy.
Energy Strategy 2050, launched earlier this year, has a goal of increasing the contribution of clean energy in the country’s total energy mix from 25% to 50% by 2050 and reducing the power generation carbon footprint by 70%.
“When I moved to the UAE, I was amazed to see the educational programs, research, and major projects focused on sustainability and RE. It has been really inspiring to work in a country that has such a strong focus on RE and sustainability,” Dr. Olabi said.
Since joining UoS, Dr. Olabi has established the Industrial Program Advisor Committee to explore research collaboration with UAE government, industry and leading international universities. In September, Dr. Olabi became director of the Sustainable Energy and Power Systems Research Center, which includes five research groups that are focused on RE, energy storage systems, smart grids, biomass, and nuclear energy. His scientific contributions were recently acknowledged by the Stanford University list of the top 2% of scientists, in which he was ranked first at UoS and among the top in the UAE.
“My plan is to establish an industrial advisory board for the center that brings together government and the private sector, so that those working in RE and power systems can support, advise, and collaborate. This will enable us to establish strong partnerships between government, academia, and industry, to do something for the benefit of our research center, our university, the wider UAE, and all” Dr. Olabi shared.
With his foundation in adaptable ME, passion for RE and environmental protection, and track record for innovation, Dr. Olabi is sure to achieve the sustainable impact he so desires.
