TWRI grant recipient develops a system to conserve industrial water
Texas A&M University graduate student Arwa Rabie is working with her advising professor Dr. El-Halwagi from the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering to develop a system to conserve water in an industrial setting.
Rabie, originally from Houston and a recipient of a $5,000 2006-2007 Texas Water Resources Institute (TWRI) research grant, said that processing industries use high levels of fresh water and have a large wastewater discharge into rivers. This wastewater contains many contaminants and because of this the industries have a hard time meeting EPA regulations which may cause a portion of them to close or move to other countries.
Rabie’s research focuses on the conservation and sustainability of water in industrial use.
“I have developed a systematic procedure to synthesize and schedule optimal batch water recycling networks. I have developed two mathematical formulations which allow me to design a water recycling network where water from selected sources can be stored in tanks and then dispatched to the appropriate units or sinks when needed,” said Rabie.
According to Rabie’s final report, this procedure can be applied to any industrial batch process – petroleum refineries, pharmaceuticals, textile, etc. and overcomes many of the limitations on previous research.
“This work has developed a novel systematic procedure to synthesize and schedule an optimum batch water network. First, a structural representation has been developed to embed potential configurations,” said Rabie. “In addition to sources and sinks, two sets of tanks have been introduced for storage and dispatch. This new arrangement overcomes previous research limitations.”
Rabie said she hopes to complete her Ph.D. in the next two years and then work in industry following her completion.
Her research was funded by TWRI with funds obtained through the U.S. Geological Survey as part of the National Institutes for Water Research annual research program. TWRI is the designated institute for water resources research in Texas.
For more information on Rabie’s research, visit USGS Research Grants.