The Faculty of Engineering at the University of Balamand (UOB) organized and hosted the closing ceremony of the Eranet-Med funded project SOL-CARE at the university Main Campus, El Koura on Tuesday, September 24, 2019.

The SOL-CARE project, Solar Catalytic Reforming: a hybrid process to transform solid waste into energy, was allocated a fund of 598,000 Euros from different funding agencies. It was also classified fourth among 21 laureates (over 190 submitted projects in Europe).

The project consortium consisted of Sorbonne University and CNRS (France), University of Balamand, Lebanese University, INDEVCO (Lebanon), ICB (Zaragoza, Spain), IST (Lisbon, Portugal), POLITO (Torino, Italy). All consortium members attended the closing ceremony and presented the final outcomes from the project that has already yielded 12 peer reviewed journal publications while several others remain in preparation. Faculty and staff members, Post-docs, MS and PhD students are working in collaboration between the institutions in a multidisciplinary and collegiate approach.

In preparation for the closing ceremony, Vice President for Internationalization and Engagement and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University Professor Rami Abboud met with Professor Pascale Massiani (project coordinator) and Dr. Nissrine El Hassan (team leader in UOB) and discussed the SOL-CARE outcomes, future collaboration and of consortium members’ projects. Professor Abboud congratulated them on the success of this project emphasizing the importance of such collaborative efforts. He offered his full support for future work in this respect.

In a welcome note at the closing ceremony, Dr. Rima Manneh (deputizing for Professor Abboud), Chairperson of the Chemical Engineering Department at UOB, spoke of the strategic importance of the project for the University of Balamand and Lebanon in general especially with the municipal solid waste crisis and the need to convert this waste into energy in an environmentally friendly manner.

Professor Massiani presented the project that aims to convert Lebanese waste into energy. She indicated that previous successful collaboration between Sorbonne University and UOB through Drs Nissrine El Hassan, Karam Jabbour and Marie-Nour Kaydouh led to this project with a larger consortium. Team leaders from consortium members presented their institutions and the main outcomes from the project. Dr. Nissrine El Hassan presented the major contribution of the University of Balamand in the reforming reactions (modeling and experimental) conducted at the Chemical Engineering Department under the supervision of Drs. Nissrine El Hassan, Elie Chalhoub, Karam Jabbour and Marie-Nour Kaydouh. UOB has also contributed to the design of the solar reformer in the Mechanical Engineering Department under the supervision of Professor Elie Honein.

Professor Chafic Mokbel, project initiator, spoke at the closing of the ceremony sharing a reflection on the project. He shed light on the contributions of this project contemplating future work and collaboration in the field of waste to energy with minimal energy loss expectation when designing such processes.