Desalination Technologies

Iqbal M. Mujtaba is a Professor of Computational Process Engineering and is currently Associate Dean (Learning, Teaching and Quality) of the Faculty of Engineering and Informatics at the University of Bradford. He was the Head of the School of Engineering at the University of Bradford from 2016 to 2018. He obtained his BSc Eng and MSc Eng degrees in Chemical Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in 1983 and 1984, respectively, and obtained his PhD from Imperial College London in 1989. He is a Fellow of the IChemE, a Chartered Chemical Engineer. He was the Chair of the European Committee for Computers in Chemical Engineering Education from 2010 to 2013 and the Chair of the IChemE’s Computer Aided Process Engineering Special Interest Group from 2012 to 2019. He is currently an Associate Editor for Asia Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering, South African Journal in Chemical Engineering, Chemical Product and Process Modelling and an Editorial Board Member of Desalination. Professor Mujtaba leads research into dynamic modeling, simulation, optimization, and control of batch and continuous chemical processes with specific interests in distillation, industrial reactors, refinery processes, desalination, wastewater treatment, and crude oil hydrotreating focusing on energy and water. He has managed several research collaborations and consultancy projects with industry and academic institutions in the United Kingdom, Italy, Hungary, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Qatar, South Africa, Iraq, Jordan, Algeria, China, Libya, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. He has published more than 380 technical papers and has delivered more than 75 invited lectures/seminars/plenaries/keynotes/short courses around the world. He has supervised 37 PhD students to completion and is currently supervising 10 PhD students. He is the author/coauthor of (1) Batch Distillation: Design and Operation (textbook) published by the Imperial College Press, London, 2004, (2) “Wastewater treatment by Reverse Osmosis” published by CRC Press, 2020. He is one of the co-editors of the books (1) Application of Neural Networks and Other Learning Technologies in Process Engineering, Imperial College Press, London, 2001, (2) Composite Materials Technology: Neural Network Applications, CRC Press, 2009, (3) The Water-Food-Energy Nexus, CRC Press, 2017, (4) Water Management: Social and Technological Perspective, CRC Press, 2018. Dr. Md Tanvir Sowgath is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering Department, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Bangladesh, and is currently the Visiting Academic of the School of Engineering, University of Bradford, UK. He is an Associate Member of the IChemE (UK) and is a BUET technical representative for the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (2021). He was selected as technical committee member for the Bangladesh Ministry of Environment (2010, 2014), technical committee member of Sylhet Gas Field for the Bangladesh Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resource (2014e2015), Department of Public Health (2013) and Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (2021). He has 12 years of teaching and research experience in the field of Chemical Engineering as an Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at BUET. He has offered a number of courses in recent years in (a) Unit operation of Chemical Process, (b) Fundamentals of Environmental Engineering, (c) Industrial Pollution Control, (d) Air Pollution Control, (e) Optimization of Chemical Process, and (f) Computer Aided Process Design. Dr. Sowgath studied his BSc Engineering degree in Chemical Engineering at BUET and obtained his PhD degree from the University of Bradford in 2007. His PhD dissertation was entitled “Neural Network based hybrid modelling and MINLP based optimization of MSF desalination process within gPROMS.” Dr. Sowgath set the stone for graduate level research in desalination at the University of Bradford which has been carried forward by several researchers at Bradford after him. Dr. Sowgath’s main research interests are in process modeling, dynamic simulation, steady state, and dynamic optimization of chemical processes with specific interests in Desalination, Gas Processing, and Refinery. He has supervised several undergraduate and MSc projects at BUET and has published several technical papers in journals and conference proceedings in the area of Desalination, Gas Processing, Refinery, and Fertilizer Processing. His current research focus in desalination is on fault diagnosis, scheduling, and maintenance.