A team of students from the American University of Sharjah (AUS) College of Engineering have created a new method to remove toxic gases from landfills.

The project is in collaboration with Bee'ah, the Middle East's leading fully integrated environment and waste management company. The project revolves around removing toxic gases from landfills for odor control using a three-stage process: humidification, bio-filtration and adsorption. The group's next task is to make it on large scale so that it could be used in landfills. The team presented its idea to Bee'ah last week. 

"The new idea about the design is the packing media, as we are using a light-weight building material that has never been used before," said AUS engineering student Zafar Abbas. "The beauty of this design is that it does not need to be regenerated, and it has a very long life expectancy."

The engineering students working on the project are Ali Ataya (team leader), Zafar Abbas, Fatima Aqrabi, Mirette Guirgues, Hadiseh Poor and Saqib Ahmed. Their work is being supervised by Dr. Zarook Shareefdeen, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, and Dr. Ahmed Aidan. 

The presentation was attended by Dr. Saaran Athab Al-Shammari, Chairman of Jubail Pearl Group. Bee'ah representatives included Hassan Abdalla Al Ali, Environmental Consultancy Services Manager; Meera Taryam, Awareness Manager; Mohammed Al Hosani, Liquid Waste Treatment Manager. Representing AUS were Salem Al Qaseer, AUS Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs; Dr. Gautem Sen, Vice Provost for Research and Graduate Studies; and Dr. Yousef Al-Assaf, Dean, College of Engineering.