Dr Asmae Khaldoun
Al Akhawayn University, Ifrane, Morocco
Invited Talk – By Dr Asmae Khaldoun, Al Akhawayn University, Ifrane, Morocco.
Although, ADNI are abundant in Ouarzazate, and the concentrating solar power (CSP) facilities are very efficient, the accumulation of pollutants on collector mirrors such as of dust, sand on collector mirrors are capable of reducing reflectivity impacting the Operation and Maintenance (M&O) cost for the CSP facilities and thereby the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) generated by these facilities. The project Nanocoating and testing finaced by IRESEN concerns the challenges to the development of transparent, anti-soiling coating, which should be designed to have superhydrophobic properties. Such antisoiling coating allowed rain droplets to roll and thereby remove dust and surface contaminants very effectively (inspired by natural this phenomenon called “Lotus Effect”) and thereby significantly reducing mirror cleaning costs. In this paper several anti-soling coatings have been explored and some of them have showed performances comparable to the start-of-the-art anti-soling coatings, in particular showing high hydrophobicity along with higher transmittance value. Several factors which make a surface superhydrophobic such as low surface energy, and surface hierarchical roughness will be discussed. The fundamental aspect of this research extended to practical applications, such as self-cleaning was presented by Houda Naciri for her PhD thesis and published on high- ranking scientific journals.
Biography
Asmae Khaldoun was born and brought up in Morocco. She studied Physics and Chemistry and holds a M. Sc. degree in Renewable Energy from the University Mohamed V in Rabat and earned PhD in physical chemistry at the University of Abdel Malek Essaadi in Morocco in 2002. She earned her second PhD in Physics “Soft condensed Matter” on January 10th, 2013 at the University of Amsterdam. From 2004 to 2007 she worked, as Post Doc at the soft condensed matter group at University of Amsterdam, under the direction of Profs. Daniel Bonn. This group – and particularly its work on complex fluids – is acknowledged to be among the premier experimental chemical engineering research programs worldwide. During the research project she has carried out in Amsterdam, she has studied the rheological behavior of mixtures of wet granular matter and clay. This is an important study, since it has delivered crucial new insight into the physical and chemical processes underlying natural phenomena such as quicksand and land-slides. The most important results of her work on quicksand were published in Nature in 2005. From 2007 to 2009, she worked as Project Leader at Avantim Technologies in Amsterdam. She worked on several Shell research development projects on high throughput and formulation technology. Presently, she is working as Assistant Professor at Al Akhawayn University, she is teaching General Physics, Conceptual Physics and Material Engineering courses. She is supervising two master students and several Capstone Projects. Her Project on Clay-Made Buildings, has been funded by the University. Recently, the Research Institute for Solar and New Energies (IRESEN) has awarded a ‘ InnoTherm II ‘ grant to her project proposal “Nanocoating and testing; a step towards the improvement of CSP reflectors for less intensive maintenance both in terms of labor and water”.