His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, awarded Universiti Malaya in collaboration with Sunway University from Malaysia, in recognition of winning the Innovative R&D Award (International Institutions Award in the 3rd cycle of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Water Award.
With a total prize of USD 1 million, the Award encourages research institutions, individuals and innovators globally to develop new technologies for producing, distributing, storing, monitoring, desalinating, and purifying water using renewable energy; to address the challenge of water scarcity. The Award is supervised by Suqia UAE under the umbrella of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives Foundation.
Expert from Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Malaya, Professor Mohamed Azlan Hussain said that winning this prestigious international award is an incentive for us to innovate further and provide practical solutions to solve water issues globally.
“Our future target is to develop a system that will produce clean water from all sources of water, even in the most remote of locations. The unique features of the system are its portability, smart self-cleaning function, chemical-free operation and ability to utilise renewable energy such as solar power, which is highly essential for systems to be deployed in remote areas where electrical power is scarce and expensive. Furthermore, we believe this system can provide viable solutions to the water scarcity worldwide,” he added.
HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Suqia UAE, praised the award winners. He said that the project supports international efforts to find sustainable and innovative solutions to combat the global water crisis. The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Water Award is a notable contribution from the UAE to provide drinking water to people in need worldwide.
The Universities’ solution is a smart auto-backwash ultra-filtration system that can treat different types of water sources to produce clean water without using any chemicals while maintaining membrane performance for a long duration and can produce 500 to 700 litres of clean water per hour.