Dr. Abu Zahra joined the Khalifa University in 2011 as Assistant Professor in Chemical Engineering and he became Associate Professor in 2014. Prior to joining, he worked for the International Energy Agency Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (IEAGHG) as a project manager in the capture and integrated system team. He was responsible of initiating and managing various projects and technical studies with a major focus on CO2 post-combustion capture.
Dr. Abu Zahra worked (2005-2009) for the Separation technology department in the Dutch research institute (TNO) in the Netherlands as a senior research engineer. His R&D activities were in the area of process development and gas treatment technologies, primarily in the development of the CO2 capture technologies using post- and pre-combustion capture. He was involved in the major Dutch and European CCS projects (e.g. CASTOR, CESAR, Dynamis, and CATO).
He received his Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Jordan and his Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering and the degree of Professional Doctorate in Engineering (PDEng) from the University of Twente in the Netherlands in 2005. In 2009, he was awarded the degree of Doctor from Delft University of Technology after defending his PhD thesis entitled “Carbon dioxide capture from flue gas: development and evaluation of existing and novel process concepts”.
His current research focuses on the development of CO2 capture and utilization technologies including the development of advanced solvents, solid sorbents and novel processes. Dr. Abu Zahra is the coordinator of the CCUS research activities within Masdar Institute and he is leading major related projects such as the Siemens-Masdar Institute CCS collaboration, the Masdar-Masdar Institute-RTI project and the Masdar Institute-ENGSL CO2 utilization project.
Dr. Abu Zahra is the Asia regional editor for the Current Environmental Engineering journal and an associate editor for the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control. His work is published in 7 book chapters, and more than 100 refereed journal publications, conference proceedings and keynote presentations. As a result of his work and scholar research he was awarded the Masdar institute best research award for the academic year 2014-2015.
