UAE scientists hope to transform Abu Dhabi coastline into profitable, green biofuel

Scientists at Masdar Institute hope to tap on the capital’s home-grown plants and turn them into biofuels that could potentially become a lucrative trade.

All along the UAE’s 2,000 kilometres of coastline, sea grass and seaweed grow. And while many might neglect or even fail to notice them, these plants could just provide a useful future industry for Abu Dhabi.

These salt-water loving plants are packed with sugar, protein, and a wide range of biologically active compounds. And just as corn can turned into ethanol, they can be grown and converted into biofuels that can be used in place of carbon-emitting fossil fuels.

Not only that, they have known medical properties and have been used as traditional remedies for untold years. And they are productive – up to 10 times more so than land plants – as mini-factories for natural sugars, proteins, and bioactive compounds that can be extracted and turned into food supplements, medicines and other products.

Such bio-chemical refining is expected to become a very lucrative and high demand industry in the coming years, providing Abu Dhabi with a new range of export products.

To help capitalise on this dual potential, our research team at the Masdar Institute is exploring whether these local plants can be used to create fuel and chemicals that have economic value for the UAE.

We are gathering samples of locally-grown plants and examining their chemical components and energy value to find out what they can be used for.

So far we have found three different types of sea grass, and more than eight interesting seaweeds that have adapted to the UAE’s extreme conditions – of which three thrive especially well.

The project also aims to discover ideal ways of extracting, isolating, and analysing the materials found in the plant matter, and of optimising biofuels processes to suit these new aquatic biomasses.

We hope our project will eventually provide the UAE with the information and methodology it needs to turn its coastline into farms for native aquatic plant life that will provide the country with new and diverse revenue sources from the resulting biofuel and biochemicals. We then intend to seek out industrial partners to put our findings to commercial use.

We hope to be able to provide efficient chemical and biotech processes to extract and convert biomass components into valuable, marketable products.

It is our hope that in time, the UAE may see many otherwise unused miles of coastland be turned into productive, profitable and green biofuel and biochemical producing farmlands.

This could also help Abu Dhabi reduce its carbon footprint and improve its environmental status, as cultivating sea grass and seaweed will help remove carbon from the atmosphere and filter water while providing vibrant and beneficial natural habitats.

Dr Mette Hedegaard Thomsen is an assistant professor of chemical engineering at the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology. Grzegorz Przemyslaw Brudecki is a post-doctoral researcher and Reda Farzanah is a chemical engineering student, both working on the project.