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Out-of-this-world guests visit
Khalifa University

Emirati Sultan Al Neyadi and three other members of Expedition 69 recently joined a packed room of engineers, scientists and students at Khalifa University to talk about their stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

The astronauts fielded questions, comments and a lot of gratitude about the 200-plus experiments the team completed in microgravity for scientists who guided the processes from Earth.

Al Neyadi, the first Emirati and Arab to complete a long mission in space and a spacewalk, said it was a difficult endeavor. The engineer and now national hero felt the pressure of conducting research for scientists in space, knowing the importance of his tasks.

But first, the astronaut had to get used to the challenges of working in microgravity.

It was difficult the first few times — we have items secured to the table with Velcro but out of habit you put something on a table and it’s suddenly floating away.

He also said performing complicated tasks like inserting a needle into tissue while speaking to Earth-bound scientists over a headset was intense. “It’s an experiment that could be ruined and I don’t want to make it a failure,” he said. “But I took it slowly and methodically and by the end had mastered it with no issue.”

Experiments, according to the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center, included fluid science and how fluids behave in microgravity; immune system research; epigenetics; and technology that may contribute to future deep-space exploration.

Al Neyadi was accompanied by crewmates NASA astronaut Warren “Woody” Hoburg, commander Sergey Prokopyev and flight engineer Sergey Prokopyev. Cosmonauts Prokopyev and Petelin were stranded on the space station for just over a year. A suspected piece of space junk damaged their return capsule three months into what was a planned six-month stay on the ISS; their 371-day tour on the ISS along with American Frank Rubio was the third-longest space mission in history.

In addition to speaking about their experiences, the astronauts visited Khalifa University labs.

The cosmonauts joked about how nice it was to see new faces when the others arrived for their half-year stay, but were serious about what the ISS represents to them. “The International Space Station is a project for all mankind and is an amazing example of international cooperation,” Prokopyev said.

CAPTION: Khalifa University panel introduction IMAGE: Khalifa University

A video of daily activities on the ISS played in the background during the panel discussion. Among the images: footage of what appeared to be an intense fitness regimen. Extended time in microgravity can result in muscle mass loss and, consequently, a reduction in bone density. Exercise mitigates health problems.

Al Neyadi says the crew exercised for two and a half hours daily. This included cardiovascular training (to keep blood pumping to the lower extremities) and resistance training. “When we returned,” he said, “we did have the muscle mass, but unfortunately we lacked the stability to exercise again on the ground and to help recover quickly after landing.”

Between scientific research projects and fitness maintenance, there was time for fun and connection.

Al Neyadi tells KUST Review that Hoburg and Prokopyev enjoyed playing chess and even 3D printed a giant piece when one team’s king floated away, never to be found again.

The crew members agreed that the biggest takeaway from the expedition is enduring friendships. “Truly, (Al Neyadi) is a brother and a life-long friend,” Hoburg said.

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The united colors of hydrogen

Hydrogen is an invisible gas, yes. But different forms are given color codenames to help distinguish among them, essentially based on the molecule used to produce hydrogen and the source of energy. There is no universal agreement on what the colors mean, so definitions may change over time or between countries. Here’s our guide to the generally understood hydrogen rainbow:

GRAY
The most common form of hydrogen production – roughly 95 percent – is produced today from the main component of natural gas (methane) through a steam reforming process. In this case natural gas reacts with steam at high temperatures and pressures producing hydrogen gas and carbon dioxide (CO2). CO2 is released into the air, accounting for 2 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions.

BLUE

Blue hydrogen is produced by the same steam reforming process as the gray hydrogen. In this case, carbon capture and storage (CSS) is added in its production to avoid the CO2 emissions.

BLACK and BROWN
These are the most environmentally damaging forms of hydrogen because they’re created using bituminous coal (“black”) or lignite (“brown”). Gasification byproducts CO2 and carbon monoxide are released into the atmosphere.

IMAGE: Unsplash

GREEN
Made with surplus energy from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power to split water, green hydrogen produces no harmful greenhouse-gas emissions, just hydrogen and oxygen.

PINK , PURPLE or RED
These colors denote hydrogen that is produced using nuclear power as the energy source to break the water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen.

TURQUOISE
The newest color is produced by a process called methane pyrolysis, which creates hydrogen and solid carbon. It is still experimental. If the process is powered by renewable energy and the carbon is used or permanently stored, turquoise is potentially a valuable low- or zero-emission hydrogen.

IMAGE: Unsplash

YELLOW
Yellow hydrogen is a new term to define hydrogen produced from the electrolysis of water using solely solar power as the energy source. It is a particular case of green hydrogen.

WHITE
This form of hydrogen, not very common, is naturally occurring in geological deposits, generated by the interaction of water with some metals of the rocks at high temperatures and pressures. It can be released by a process named fracking. The same name is given to the hydrogen produced as a byproduct in industrial processes.

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What’s the ETA on EVs?

In July 2022, Bloomberg analysts reported that the U.S. has now reached the “tipping point” for mass adoption of electric vehicles. According to the report, the nation has reached the magic number that signals a period when “technological preferences rapidly flip.” That magic number is just 5 percent — and 5 percent of new car sales in 2022 were electric vehicles.

IMAGE: Shutterstock
The Middle East brings its own challenges to EV adoption

Although consumer interest is high in the region — local company M Glory Holding Group in the UAE opened its electric vehicle manufacturing plant in 2022 with plans to produce 55,000 electric cars annually to meet a rising demand for green mobility — there are still numerous obstacles hindering the widespread adoption of EVs. The limited availability of EV charging stations is one concern, but more pressing is the new demand placed on power grids by at-home charging stations. Traditional power-distribution grids are not designed to handle a significant number of EVs charging in the evenings when their owners return home from work. Utilities providers will need to predict and account for this surge in demand. Read more›››

EV manufacturers also face the challenge of keeping up with demand, not just for EVs themselves but for their constituent parts. Replacement parts are expensive relative to components needed for internal combustion vehicles, especially when supply chains are not fully developed and hampered by the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic on logistics around the world. Localized procurement is the answer for the future, but companies and suppliers need time and investment to set up and serve the local market. In a relatively nascent industry, this is not a short-term solution.

Included in those replacement parts are batteries and tires. Saudi Arabia announced a U.S.$6 billion investment in a steel plate mill complex and electric vehicle battery plant in 2022 to take advantage of its geographical location at the crossroads of the producers of the necessary minerals: lithium, cobalt, manganese, nickel and graphite. But this investment also foresees the need for more batteries in the Middle Eastern EV market than anywhere else. Put simply: The sun and car batteries don’t mix well. Hot weather means higher temperatures under the hood, which accelerates corrosion inside the battery. In an electric vehicle, full of batteries, this is naturally an exponentially larger concern.

Beyond damaging them, heat also drains batteries, meaning less range available for drivers. A 2019 study by the American Automobile Association found the driving range of an EV could reduce by up to 17 percent if the temperature is constantly above 35C — which it is for almost half the year in the Gulf.

Charging the EV only adds to the heat experienced by the battery. Charging in the evening makes it easier on the cooling systems but that puts a strain on the power grids.

It’s all connected!‹‹‹ Read less

Sales for electric vehicles, commonly called EVs, are on track to double every couple of years, says Loren McDonald of EVAdoption. The industry analysis group predicts 40 million EVs on U.S. roads by 2030. In 2020, some 276 million vehicles were registered.

The industry certainly seems to believe in the proliferation of electric vehicles: Vojay Chandler, investment strategist at Morgan Stanley, says EV’s share of global auto sales is likely to grow from about 7 percent today to nearly 90 percent by 2050.

There are plenty of reasons for this. Climate change and its consequences are forcing people to consider their environmental impact. Governments across the globe are developing policies to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increasing energy efficiency wherever possible. Fuel prices are at the mercy of political instability, particularly in Europe, and governments are hesitant to introduce e-fuels.

As Nasir Salari, marketing expert at Bath Spa University, points out, despite the sluggish growth rate of electric cars, the latest report by the International Energy Agency in 2020 illustrates promising figures in major markets. The global electric car stock hit the 10 million mark, a 43 percent increase over 2019. And while China has the largest fleet with 4.5 million, Europe had the largest annual increase to reach 3.2 million. In the United Kingdom, 67,100 passenger electric cars were registered in 2020. This is promising, Salari says, but the adoption curve is still at the early stage.

IMAGE: Abjad

Salari conducted research in the U.K. looking at the factors contributing to the “sluggish growth rate.” He interviewed 336 individuals in the U.K. to assess their willingness to buy an EV. Like most analysts, he predicts a boom in the coming years, particularly with the U.K. government reaffirming its commitment to ban new petrol and diesel cars in 2030. With pressures like these, new cars will be electric, but people currently seem reluctant to dive into the electric future.

Credit: Abjad

“There are various reasons for this,” Salari tells KUST Review. “This has always been the case for new revolutionary products: the first color TV, smartphone, cameras, for example.

There have always been early adopters and then majority adopters and the people open to embracing technology in general will also be more willing to adopt an electric car. The TRI is a good indicator of this.”

Developed in 2000, the TRI (Technology Readiness Index) is a widely used scale in understanding technology adoption behavior and a powerful tool to predict the adoption of incremental and revolutionary technologies.

“Our data shows no difference between men and women in their willingness to purchase an EV or pay a higher price for the product,” Salari says. “However, the overall TRI is higher amongst men than women, and this difference is statistically significant. This shows that overall, men are more willing to embrace new technology and possess new and unique items in general. There was also no significance between age groups for their willingness to purchase, but I was surprised to see a significant difference in how much environmentalism played a part: The 50-plus age group expressed higher levels of green values than the 20-29 group.”

IMAGE: Unsplash
Bringing down charging times

One of the issues with electric vehicles is the charging time. But a team at Khalifa University is working on cutting that time down. Read more›››

On-board EV charging is generally done through two stages, says Vinod Khadkikar, who leads the project funded by Abu Dhabi’s ASPIRE. In the first stage, AC voltage is converted into DC voltage. But this DC voltage is generally higher than the EV battery voltage, so an additional DC-DC converter is needed to charge the battery. Most current commercial on-board chargers use a full-power processing converter at the DC-DC stage, which requires higher voltage and current rating of switches and diodes. This restricts the charging speed. The size, cost and efficiency of any EV charger also largely depends on the device rating and number of power processing stages.

The KU team proposes partial power processing-based topographies at the DC-DC stage that use a fraction of the power.

“Therefore, the DC-DC converter size is reduced and the charger efficiency is high (97-99 percent with hard switching). The semiconductor device rating is reduced significantly, which helps to achieve higher power density (smaller footprint/compact size). This lets the user use the same footprint size to design the charger for higher power,” Khadkikar says.‹‹‹ Read less

Interestingly, Salari found that most consumers were more concerned by the economic impact of their purchase, rather than the environmentalism aspect: They cared more about their investment than how green they were being.

“Electric vehicles are advertised as environmentally friendly and they are! And people know this, but this isn’t necessarily encouraging people to purchase them,” Salari says. “Environmentalism does not have an impact on purchasing an electric car; its functionality is more important.”

Like Salari, experts believe that demand for electric vehicles will increase as they become more affordable. Morgan Stanley predicts that continued performance improvements and reductions in the cost of batteries (which account for about 35 percent of an EV’s total cost) could lower the average EV price to $18,000 by 2025.

Salari says it also depends on consumer incentives: “People aren’t running out to buy electric vehicles because they’re good for the environment. They’re hesitating because they’re expensive but they’re in favor because their running costs are much cheaper. Regular drivers are more open to adopting EVs because of fuel costs, so it all depends on how you market your product. Enviro isn’t doing it: Shift your marketing to the economic benefits.

Prices will be lower in the future — that’s how innovation works. The first time a product launches, it’s not a cheap product, but as it becomes a mainstream offering, it will become more affordable. The market is still in its infancy. To grow it, we need more early adopters and government incentives are one way to drive adoption.

– Nasir Salari, Marketing Expert at Bath Spa University

Tax credits and improved infrastructure are the way forward then. The U.K. is certainly investing in its electric vehicle readiness: Lampposts across London are being fitted with sensors and EV charging points to reduce emissions and cut congestion, and parking is even free in the capital for EV drivers. New-build houses come with electric vehicle charging stations as standard and many are fitted with solar panels to power this.

As charging infrastructure gets more support, subsidies and incentives become more robust, and governments enforce more petrol-banning policies, electric car sales will continue to rise.

“It’s happening,” Salari tells KUST Review. “It may not be where we expected it to be by now, but it’s happening.”

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We’ve captured carbon. Now what?

Before the industrial revolution the world removed carbon from the air all by itself. With global carbon emissions breaking records in 2022 and potential risks of storing carbon underground, however, companies are getting creative and repurposing captured carbon in unexpected ways.

The Paris Agreement in 2015 had countries all over the world commit to take part in the race to net-zero emissions. Those countries are working toward the agreement’s renewable-energy goals, but more can be done to control greenhouse gases. One solution is carbon capture.

Natural or human-made

Carbon capture is the process of retrieving carbon emissions from the air and storing them. The process can be natural or manmade.

Natural carbon capture and storage is achieved by elements of the planet’s ecosystems. Trees, for example, are an effective carbon-capture and storage mechanism: Their leaves absorb carbon dioxide from the air through photosynthesis. But if trees are cut and burned for firewood — or even if the tree dies naturally — stored carbon is released back into the atmosphere.

The largest source of natural carbon capture is the world’s oceans. The United Nations estimates that the oceans soak up about 25 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions and 90 percent of the surplus heat those emissions cause.

This natural carbon-capture process is called the carbon cycle. The problem is the world’s ecosystems can’t keep up with the greenhouse gases that are being produced by humans.

Enter man-made carbon capture.

Carbon-capture processes are designed to remove carbon from industrial waste or from the air outside. Carbon-capture plants typically have walls of giant fans, sucking in air. They remove the carbon from the air, convert it to liquid, store it underground or use it to inject into oil fields to simplify oil extraction. But there are challenges with carbon capture.

These large plants require a lot of energy in the form of materials to build the facilities and the energy to run them. Additionally, once the carbon dioxide is stored, there are risks. The carbon dioxide could leak out of the stored areas, polluting water sources and eventually reaching the surface — once again polluting the air.

Reasons for concern

There is also concern that pressure from injecting the carbon underground could cause seismic activity and controversy over whether carbon capture and storage might embolden fossil-fuel use. The 2022 report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis says, “Captured carbon has mostly been used for enhanced oil recovery” and “enhancing oil production is not a climate solution.”

While easing oil removal is the most common use of captured carbon, some companies are getting creative and managing carbon in other unusual ways.

Many large companies purchase carbon offsets to reduce their footprints. But individuals can purchase them as well. One company selling to individuals is Climeworks, a Swiss-based carbon-removal company that captures 900 tons of carbon annually. Buyers can even offer this as a “green gift” in the name of someone else. Climeworks also produces the bubbles for carbonated beverages for such clients as Coca-Cola.

Also getting off the ground is E-Jet fuel from carbon-capture company Twelve. The company says this fuel lowers greenhouse-gas emission of traditional fuels by 80 percent. Twelve entered into a memorandum of understanding with Alaska Air Group and Microsoft to work toward testing the fuel on a commercial flight.

Taking Off

In an announcement of the partnership, Nicholas Flanders, co-founder and CEO of Twelve said, “By producing our drop-in E-Jet fuel from captured CO2, we can rapidly and efficiently close the carbon cycle and allow businesses to sustainably use emissions to power their own business travel.” No date for the testing of the commercial flight has been announced. Air Transport Action Group reports that aviation makes up 12 percent of emissions from all transport sources.

After returning home from a green, commercial flight, weary travelers might do some green laundry with laundry capsules made from captured carbon.

In 2010, Unilever, which produces over 400 household brands such as Omo, Ben and Jerry’s and Dove, began a decades-long commitment to halve its environmental impact by 2030. One of the ingredients used to make foam in Omo (Persil) laundry capsules is fossil fuels. But on World Earth Day in 2021, Unilever launched a limited-edition capsule that used captured carbon instead of fossil fuels in a new process that makes the capsule 82 percent less carbon intensive. Unilever aims to achieve net zero emissions from its product line by 2039.

Even with the volume of removal, storage and creative ways carbon is being repurposed, carbon neutrality remains out of reach. The 2021 Global Status of Carbon Capture and Storage Report estimates that in order to reach mid-century goals, the number of carbon-capture facilities would have to increase by 100 times. There are currently 27.

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Launching medical research

A generation of drugs called monoclonal antibodies, also known as MABs, is altering the landscape of disease treatment by selectively targeting disease-causing agents and kick-starting immune cells. But sending fundamental, engineered proteins into space for further research may reveal ways to make drugs more targeted, concentrated and easier to administer.

MABs make up about one-third of protein-based therapeutics and are most often used to treat cancer and inflammation. They are widely regarded for their ability to target the specific protein of a pathogen and stop it from invading more cells. This means the therapy is tailored to the patient’s disease. The problem, however, is that patients need to get these drugs in large quantities over extended periods of time.

Proteins are too small to study under a microscope, so growing them into crystals lets researchers get a better understanding of their 3D constitution. Their makeup reveals how each protein works and how it contributes to disease growth. Once we understand this, drugs can be developed that mesh with the protein and fight the disease scenarios.

As well as being an important category of therapeutics, proteins are themselves drug targets. Drug design companies need high-resolution protein structures to design suitable drugs.

This is where microgravity comes in.

Earth’s gravity can inhibit the growth and quality of crystals by affecting how the molecules position themselves on the exterior of the crystal. This makes space an ideal environment for this type of research.

AN INVOLVED PROCESS

Dr. David Sheehan, professor of biochemistry in Khalifa University’s department of Chemistry, has been working on a method of crystalizing proteins for 12 years. Now, his proteins are waiting in Japan for a possible February 2024 ride to the International Space Station.

While turning proteins into crystals might seem like a cool magic trick, the process is quite involved. And many of the victories in successful crystallization can be attributed to time, patience and a lot of luck.

CAPTION: David Sheehan, professor of biochemistry-chemistry department, Khalifa University

Sheehan says initially, the protein is purified or separated from anything that might inhibit crystallization, like fatty materials from cells. The pH level is maintained for an optimum growth environment, and salt might be added to increase the ionic strength — or concentration — of the solution.

Other precipitants like polyethylene glycol or organic solvents, which decrease the protein solubility, are added. Then, the conditions are manipulated in a variety of ways, such as adjusting the temperature or exposure to gravity.

The chemical additives and pH combined make up a condition. Most proteins only give crystals in a small number of conditions, so it is necessary to screen thousands of conditions to find the small number that will yield usable crystals.

– Dr. David Sheehan, professor of biochemistry-Chemistry department, Khalifa University

And then it’s a waiting game — crystals might form in a week, a year or not at all.

Sheehan says researchers spend most of their time watching and hoping for a crystal, but most won’t see it: “When and if a crystal appears, then you’ve got a project.”

In his case, the crystals responded well to the addition of nanoparticles. While most of these types of experiments might typically result in one or two crystals from thousands, Sheehan’s team grew 15 crystals out of a panel of 16 proteins studied.

“We found one formulation that worked better than the others. So, then we used that nanoparticle with about 200 conditions,” he tells KUST Review.

This is unheard of, he says. And he knew they were on to something significant.

CAPTION: Crystals of protein Furin grown on Earth IMAGE: Khalifa University

When the UAE space program was asked to send protein samples to Japan for testing and a possible spot on the 2024 mission to the International Space Station, Sheehan believed his team had a good shot at it. The crystals are in Japan for final testing.

JOURNEY TO SPACE

The project has a long history.

Sheehan grew his first nanoparticle-doped protein crystal over a decade ago, the result of an idea that had been brewing, a fridge full of available proteins, a student looking for a project and a friend with access to a synchrotron, a machine that uses electricity to create intense X-ray beams to study matter’s chemical and structural properties.

The student experimented with two nanoparticles, different from the ones they used on the recent project: “The crystals grew very quickly and in the presence of a nanoparticle, they were larger, they grew faster, and they really grew. And that worked with both nanoparticles,” he says.

The stars (or crystals rather) aligned, and Sheehan and his student were soon transporting proteins to Dublin to a crystallographer friend who agreed to take them to the Paris synchrotron.

A synchrotron is about the size of a football stadium and is an ideal way to determine the three-dimensional atomic structure of a protein. It involves the crystallization of the protein and an in-depth analysis using a method called X-ray diffraction, Sheehan says.

Here, an X-ray beam is sent through the crystal. This interacts with the atoms in the crystal’s network, which scatter, creating a pattern. The pattern is recorded, and multiple images are created by rotating the protein, collecting further patterns and creating a map. The data is analyzed and a 3D structure is created.

FOCUS ON PROTEINS

But why are we so focused on proteins? Why not other molecules?

Proteins are the worker bees of a cell. They play an essential role in most biological systems and are responsible for most cellular functions. They are responsible for the shape, the interior design, production, cleanup, general upkeep and communication of cells. This makes them of great interest for targeted drug development, Sheehan says.

There are more than 130 protein-based therapeutics on the market, and the next step is to make them even better.

Current drugs for diseases like cancer, for example, require patients to take them for lengthy periods. Patients might sit in a clinic, hooked up to an IV for hours at a time, to ensure they get the right concentration of treatment. These treatments can go on for months or years. Imagine if they could receive a simple injection in a doctor’s office. This is something pharmaceutical giant Merck is working on.

And this type of drug development is dependent on research like that of Sheehan and his team.

CAPTION: Structure of Furin obtained by Cryo-EM of crystals IMAGE: Khalifa University

For example furin, the protein in Japan at present, is a potential antiviral drug target for treating COVID-19.

Aside from the contributions to science, fighting disease and improving patient care, it could also mean a commercial venture.

“This could be very big,” Sheehan says. “I can see two options for commercialization, one of which is to market this as a crystallization screen and the other a start-up offering this as a service.”

With the team’s current success rate of more than 90 percent, it’s promising.

Sheehan and his researcher Salma Sultana Syed have now patented their screen in the USA and UAE with a patent in Europe pending. They are exploring creating a start-up to be called ProScreenix.

According to Allied Market Research, the protein therapeutics global market value is expected to reach U.S.$566.6 billion by 2030, up from U.S.$283.64 billion in 2020.