Last Updated on 3rd August 2017

Dr. Sharif F. Zaman, Associate Professor, Chemical and Materials Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia delivered a seminar titled“AMMONIA DECOMPOSITION TO PRODUCE HYDROGEN FOR FUEL CELL” on 2nd August 2017 at 03:00 pm in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering of Southeast University, Tejgaon permanent campus.

Dr. Zaman, in his talk, at first, explained about climate change, one of the greatest challenges facing the world today; Greenhouse effect;global warming due to human activity – particularly by burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas). He mentioned that Carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels has been the major contributor to this problem since the beginning of the industrial revolution. He shows how various researchers around the world are working hard to develop a COx free alternative fuel and energy vectors that would serve the current and future global energy demands which consist of transportation of vehicles. He said that H2 is the most potential energy carrier for the future but dealing with the problem of on board safe storage facilities at atmospheric pressure. So, there is a search for a potential hydrogen storage material, i.e. cryogenic storage (liquefied H2), solid storage (MOF) materials and liquid storage materials (CH4, NH3, CH3OH etc.). Ammonia is very important hydrogen storage medium. Compared to all organic compounds, ammonia has the highest volumetric hydrogen content of 17.75 wt%. It is non-flammable and non-explosive. Hydrogen produced by catalytic ammonia decomposition does not contain carbon monoxide or other catalytic poisons. For this reason, its use in fuel cells for energy production has very good prospects. Transition metal nitrides belong to a class of interstitial compounds, in which nitrogen atoms replace oxygen atoms in the metal oxide crystal structure. Owing to their similarity with group VIII noble metals, these materials have attracted much attention as potential catalysts for many reactions. He also presented few of his research results for NH3 decomposition over Molybdenum nitride (Mo2N) and Cobalt promoted Mo2N catalyst. In the final part of the seminar, Dr. Zaman talked about the prospects of higher study with full scholarships at Masters and PhD level at his university.

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At the end, Dr. Engr. Muhibul Haque Bhuyan, Chairman of EEE Department presented seminar speaker Dr. Sharif F. Zamana crest as a token of appreciation for presenting the seminar and thanked all the audiences present in the seminar and asked them to do research on such type of burning issues of the world. He also requested Dr. Zaman for starting any kind of Faculty/student exchange program between SEU and KAU. Finally, he wishes him a nice journey and safe return to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Most of the Faculty Members and a very good number of students of the Department of EEE were present in the seminar.