Center membership : 

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Affiliations

• Environmental Science and Engineering

Education Profile

• Ph.D., Membrane Separation Technology (MSP), University of Montpellier, 1995
  
• M.S., Process Engineering (MSP), University of Montpellier, 1992
  
• B.S., Mechanical Engineering and Energy, INGM/INSA, 1991
  

Research Interests

The current desalination technologies are very energy-intensive compared to the thermodynamic limits, despite recent technical improvements. Furthermore, membrane technology development is hampered by relatively low flux performances and membrane fouling. Professor Ghaffour’s research work focuses on reducing the cost of desalination for water supply sustainability by improving the performance of the existing desalination technologies and developing innovative low-energy desalination processes, which could be driven by renewable energy in an integrated system.​

Selected Publications

Transport phenomena and fouling in vacuum enhanced direct contact membrane distillation: Experimental and modelling
G. Naidu, W.G. Shim, S. Jeong, Y.K. Choi, N. Ghaffour, S. Vigneswaran
Separation and Purification Technology, Volume 172, pp. 285-295, (2017)

Dynamic modeling and experimental validation for direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) process
F. Eleiwi, N. Ghaffour, A. Al-Saadi, L. Francis, T.M. Laleg-Kirati
Desalination, Volume 384, 1-11, (2016)

A novel integrated thermal-/membrane-based solar energy-driven hybrid desalination system: Concept description and simulation results
Y.-D. Kim, K. Thu, K.C. Ng, G.L. Amy, N. Ghaffour
Water Research, Volume 100, 7-19, (2016)

Effect of operating parameters and membrane characteristics on air gap membrane distillation performance for the treatment of highly saline water
J. Xu, Y.B. Singh, G.L. Amy, N. Ghaffour
Journal of Membrane Science, Volume 512, pp. 73-82, (2016) ​

Spiral-shaped reactor for water disinfection
S. Soukane, F. Ait-Djoudi, W.M. Naceur, N. Ghaffour
Desalination and Water Treatment, pp. 1-16, (2016)