Seminar on “Nanotechnology: A New Frontier in Water Treatment”

August 5, 2019

Topic: Nanotechnology: A New Frontier in Water Treatment

The Civil and Environmental Engineering Student Association (CEESA) and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (DCEE) jointly organized a seminar titled "Nanotechnology: A New Frontier in Water Treatment" on Monday, August 5, 2019 from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm at the Syndicate Hall.

Dr. Shahnawaz Sinha, Assistant Research Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and Built Environment (SSEBE) at Arizona State University (ASU), USA was the keynote speaker of the seminar. Dr. Javed Bari, Dean of School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Dr. Md. Shoaib Chowdhury, Professor of DCEE and the Faculty Advisor of CEESA and Dr. Nadim Reza Khandaker, Associate Professor of DCEE were also present and spoke at the seminar. Dr. Khandaker graciously introduced the keynote speaker.

Dr. Sinha began the lecture indicating that “there are more than one billion people still without access to safe drinking water, resulting in various types of water-borne diseases and countless premature deaths. The speaker shared his research experience and findings on the application of nanotechnology in potable and industrial water treatments at the NanoEnabled Water Treatment (NEWT) Center, ASU. He mentioned that “NEWT plans to translate scientific discoveries to niche applications to meet the broader municipal drinking water sector need, both nationally and internationally, replacing chemical-intensive Victorian Age processes with smaller, efficient, innovative systems that produce higher quality water and fewer residuals or by-products”. He indicated that there are enormous challenges on how to resolve the global water crisis and encouraged students to participate in the nanotechnology based water treatment research as nanotechnology has the potential to produce high quality water at a relatively lower cost.

A large number of CEESA members attended the seminar and the audience interacted with the keynote speaker during the question and answer session. Finally, Dr. Chowdhury concluded the seminar by thanking the keynote speaker for his lively presentation and the CEESA members for organizing the event and actively participating in the seminar.