Lilian Malaeb on green issues

Lilian Malaeb Beirut – Anwar Al Daw   When Arab students address environmental problems on an international scale and introduce effective solutions, it deserves attention as a milestone of academic research. It also affirms that the Arab is a nation able to produce scientists. Lebanese student Lilian Nawaf Malaeb, though confident of her path to success, is aware of the challenges she faces. A PhD holder from the American University in Beirut, she excelled in civil engineering, and ranked second in the faculty of engineering and architecture at the university. Her landmark thesis "Development of a Solar Still Desalination System with Enhanced Productivity" introduced feasible and environment friendly solutions for desalinating sea water. There is an increasing need for such research as it secures an alternative source to protect from the danger of drought and water scarcity. It is true that Lebanon may be not in need of desalinating sea water as much as it is in need of regulating water consumption, but this does not hinder Malaeb from addressing a global problem that faces states with no options except to rely on the sea and oceans to secure one of life's prominent necessities, water. Malaeb focused on the technology of water desalination using solar energy as well as increasing the end productivity. Arabstoday met with doctor Malaeb. At first she stated that desalination has been used since thousands of years. "Archimedes explained this process through a system known as the Hydrologic Cell and Arabs among others have applied this, for example, during long sea journeys. However, the old process did not secure enough water," she said. About whether there was work on innovating this process, Malaeb said that a few decades ago a reconsideration of the technology was adopted in order to secure more water resources, especially after the increase in population. "Dozens of studies addressed developing this technology, however they encountered two obstacles: the first was the high cost compared to the enhancement in productivity, the second was the complexity of these systems," she said. As for new developments, she said that at first she studied the most valuable achievements and found that so far there was no viable, effective alternative. "The principle is to maintain the pros of this system such as the ease of operation, availability and effectiveness of materials, as well as cost effectiveness. It was found that productivity could reach between 300 and 400 percent. The main idea is to increase the amount of water that evaporates," she explained. She added that this technology would be a good alternative for areas without oil. As for oil-rich areas,l it would be important as well, bearing in mind the cost of pollution. Malaeb cited two problems faced by the globe where such solutions were required. The first is the lack of water, while the second is that it limits pollution, producing water using clean and renewable energy. She also added that they did experiments on water filled with toxic pollutants and after evaporation they could produce pollution-free water. Malaeb expects the study will be marketable on a large scale and they are now focusing on obtaining a patent. She added that the study was financed by the National Council for Scientific Research, Lebanon and the Middle East Desalination Research Center, Oman.   She thanked her parents who provided her with all the conditions needed to study, as well as her university and professors who huided her work: Dr George Ayoub, Dr Moatasem al-Fadel, Dr Kamel Abou Ghali, Dr Mahmoud al-Hindi, and Dr Pascal Sekally.