The Emirates Rain Research Program has launched a research campaign aimed at testing the efficiency and effectiveness of nanotechnology materials in raining operations, with flights and tests taking place from Al Ain International Airport, over the eastern and western regions of the country.
Professor Khalifa University, one of the three recipients of the first Emirates Rainfall Research Program, Professor Linda Zou, tested the internal components and the nanometer outer cover of the innovative pollination granules to measure the effectiveness of their use as a nucleus for condensation of water vapor and the collection of small droplets into the cloud.
New measurements of cloud components are being carried out using a private jet, equipped with sophisticated and high-precision instruments by the National Meteorological Center, in collaboration with a number of international experts.
In early 2015, the UAE Ministry of Presidential Affairs launched the UAE Rainfall Science Research Program, under the auspices of the National Center for Meteorology, as an ambitious global initiative designed to promote rain research and accelerate access to water security based on international cooperation in scientific research and development.
Dr Abdullah Al Mandoos, Director of the National Meteorological Center, said: “The outstanding research results confirm the success of the Center, through the Emirates Rain Research Program, to attract a wide participation of the world's leading elite experts to help enhance water security in the affected areas. Water scarcity around the world ».
The research campaign is an important part of the center's steps to implement and test the efficacy of new cloud nanomaterials, consisting of salt crystals coated with a thin nanoscale layer of titanium dioxide particles. Through laboratory tests and analyzes, the experimental results indicate that these innovative materials are much more capable of stimulating the condensation of water vapor and the growth of water droplets in the clouds, compared with the salt crystals currently used in raining experiments in the UAE.
Professor Zou's research project is significant by submitting two patent applications globally in 2017 and 2018, to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, to register a new application in nanotechnology cloud vaccination, which has moved from the laboratory to large-scale applications.
Based on nanomaterial production experiments by a US manufacturing and R&D company specializing in fine particle technology based on the dry coating process of these particles, nanomaterials can be cost-effective when mass-produced.
Alia Al Mazrouei, Director of the Emirates Rainfall Research Program, said that the success of Professor Zou's innovative project confirms that the Emirates Rainfall Research Program is beginning to bear fruit in introducing new knowledge and applying it on the ground.
The research campaign will be held in collaboration with the Center's experts, Dr. Paul Lawson, the recipient of the second round of the program, and his team from SPEC in the United States of America.
In turn, Prof. Linda Zou expressed her gratitude for the support of the Center and the Emirates Research Program for Rain Science, and their contribution to accelerate new scientific research in this framework, and open the prospects for the possibility of using nanomaterials to pollinate clouds.
A private jet equipped with sophisticated and high-precision instruments makes new measurements of cloud components.