Innovative water recovery solutions through recycling of heat

iWAYS- Innovative WAter recoverY Solutions through recycling of heat, materials and water across multiple sectors. 

Two centuries after the first industrial revolution, the white plumes from industry’s chimneys are still the symbol of industry, fostering societal prosperity, but they are also a symbol of environmental pollution. From a resource viewpoint these white plumes are an unexploited source of water and energy as these gaseous emissions represent one of the main streams that discharges used water during the manufacturing of ceramics, chemical products, steel, food, paper pulp, aluminium and other industrial goods. Thus, transforming these industries towards near zero discharge water to reduce exhaust gases, recover water and energy, transforming industry constitutes an exciting and strategically important action to meet the policy goals of the European Green Deal. 

State-of-the-art technologies have though not succeeded in meeting the challenges associated such as cost-effectiveness and robust integration with the manufacturing process, and hence these white plumes continue being an important loss of water and energy. This is the principal challenge the iWAYS project will solve by developing a set of technologies capable of recovering water and energy from exhaust gases for productive use in the industrial process. iWAYS systems will then treat steam condensate to meet the water quality requirements of each industrial process, while the recovered heat will be used to reduce primary energy consumption.

iWAYS will recover additional materials from flue gas such as valuable acids or particulates, improving the production’s raw material efficiency and reducing detrimental emissions to the environment. Alternative fresh water sources such as surface run-off will be considered to meet sustainable water supply goals. Finally, iWAYS will also develop robust technologies that will reduce brine volumes and direct wastewater discharges from industrial manufacturing, recycling product water back to the manufacturing process.

Meet the Principal Investigator(s) for the project

Professor Hussam Jouhara - Having worked in academia and the industry, Hussam has unique expertise in working on applied heat exchangers and energy-related research activities with direct support from research councils and various UK and international industrial partners. He has extensive expertise in designing and manufacturing various types of heat exchangers, including heat pipes and heat pipe-based heat exchangers for low, medium and high temperature applications. His work in the field of heat pipe based heat exchangers resulted in novel designs for recouperators, steam generators & condensers and flat heat pipes. These have been implemented across various industries including, but not limited to: food, electronics thermal management and low to high industrial waste heat recovery and Energy from Waste. Over the last few years, he has successfully managed to achieve new designs for industrial waste heat recovery and many thermal systems that have enhanced the performance of various industrials processes in the UK, Europe and world-wide. He is also an elected member of the Senate of Brunel University London.  Throughout his academic and industrial career, he received over £14.1M research funding from various UK/EU based research councils (RCUK & EU H2020) and from British and European industrial partners. He is a published author of academic books with many filed patents in areas related to heat pipes engineering and manufacturing and Energy from Waste systems. He is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of both Engineers Ireland (Ireland) and IMechE (UK). Hussam is the founder and the Head of the Heat Pipe and Thermal Management Research Group in Brunel University London.  Major projects as a Principal Investigator in Brunel: Technical Director of: Innovative WAter recoverY Solutions (iWAYS) - H2020 Technical Coordinator of: Heat Pipe Technologies for Industrial Applications (ETEKINA) - H2020 Technical Coordinator of: Prefabrication, Recyclability and Modularity for cost reductions in Smart BIPV systems (PVADAPT) - H2020 Climate and cultural based design and market valuable technology solutions for Plus Energy Houses.  (CULTRAL-E) - H2020 Innovative Polymer-Based Composite Systems for High-Efficient Energy Scavenging And Storage (InComEss) - H2020 Design for Resource and Energy efficiency in cerAMic kilns (DREAM) - H2020 STEP – Heat Pipe Design Challenge for Hot Plasma Cooling - UKAEA High-Power and High-Energy Battery Systems with Integrated Structural Thermal Management for Heavy-Duty Applications - Innovate UK Roadmap for Industry - Academia collaboration between Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Argos Cement Company, Brunel University London and Econotherm in heat recovery in large industrial systems - Royal Academy of Engineering Conceptual Feasibility of a Heat Pipe as a Structural and Thermal Member in an Automotive Battery Pack Design - Innovate UK IMproving Power bAttery Cooling Technologies (IMPACT) - Innovate UK Room Temperature Passive Heat Recovery with Heat Pipe - Innovate UK Controllable bidirectional heat recovery device - Knowledge Transfer Network Erva Mate Drying - Innovate UK Active refrigeration shelf with thermal storage - Innovate UK EDUCATION Ph. D. (Mechanical Engineering), 2004, University of Manchester, UK PROFESSIONAL CREDENTIALS Institution of Mechanical Engineers (UK): Chartered Member and Fellow (CEng, FIMechE)  CIBSE (UK): Fellow (CEng FCIBSE) Engineers Ireland: Chartered Engineer and Fellow (CEng, IntPE, FIEI)  Institute of Refrigeration (UK): Member (M.Inst.R)  TEACHING CREDENTIALS P. G. Cert. in Higher Education, 2010, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH, UK. Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), 2017, UK  

Related Research Group(s)

Heat Pipe and Thermal Management - Thermal management; Energy efficiency development; Emission reduction; Energy recovery; Heat-pipe technology; Heat exchangers; Fluid dynamics.

Project last modified 13/10/2023