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The aim of the project is to offer an affordable, feasible, lightweight electromagnetic interference shielding material with high performance through developing the absorption and reflection shielding efficiencies of a hybrid binary nanocomposite. The hybrid binary nanocomposite is based on combining a high dielectric loss material with a high magnetic loss material surpassing their individual performance fulfilling the commercial demands.

To achieve the project goal, a reduced graphene oxide reduction protocol is developed to improve its structure and provide higher conductivity, followed by mechanical mixing with two different high magnetic materials (barium ferrite as a hard magnet and magnetite as a soft magnet) and correlating the effect of different incident wave powers and thicknesses. Furthermore, the optimized hybrid binary nanocomposite will be examined using the chemical mixing technique, followed by a careful microwave treatment to improve the composite’s magnetic characteristics. These advancements improve the shielding mechanism, resulting in enhanced electromagnetic wave attenuation for a wide range of civil and military applications.

Dr. Raja is currently involved in Techno- Economic and scale up analysis of various OCP provided Patents. Most of these inventions are related to the production of phosphoric acid, valorization of phosphate waste rocks and purification processes for phosphoric acid. The produced phosphoric acid ranges from electronic grade to food, pharmaceutical and fertilizers grades. The other parallel OCP task is the design modification of flash dryers and application of indirect dryers for the phosphate drying. The importance and purpose of this project is to reduce carbon foot print by reducing or replacing fossil fuels consumption and suggesting drying operations which can be operated by green energy i.e., wind and solar. The project involves the techno-economic and optimization analysis for different scenarios considering different sources of fuel for drying process.

The goal of my research project is to progressively develop nanoenergetic material (nanothermite) with high heat released, reactivity, combustion gaseous product and hence improving combustion pressure, decrease ignition temperature and sensitivity, to fulfill the increasing demands in micro scale propulsion systems and green imitating explosives. At the beginning, extensive evaluation of the potential impact of different carbon nano materials (graphene oxide, reduced graphene oxide, carbon nanotubes and carbon nanofibers) will typically perform on the combustion properties of nanothermites. Prepared nanothermites based on oxygenated oxidisers as a reactive alternative to metallic ones, represented by potassium perchlorate and nano aluminum powder. Then, comparative studies between different metallic and oxygenated oxidizers tertiary nanothermites will be done reasonably to positively identify the potential impact of each oxidiser on the superior performance of nanothermite. In addition, carefully specify the role of each one and its possible application (heat or pressure). After that, synthesis and consistent characterization of thermite compositions based on an energetic metal organic framework (free of Al) will be properly conducted as a green thermite. Finally, the beneficial effect of energetic polymers on the thrust performance of nanothermite will be adequately investigated for microthruster specific application.

Afshin is currently working on acid leaching along with acid regeneration liquor from the leaching process. This research is related to an acid leaching process for heavy metals removal, cadmium in particular, from phosphate ore. The phosphate ore is treated with an acid in a reactor to extract cadmium and other heavy metals such as arsenic from the ore. The treated phosphate ore with low cadmium and heavy metal content is then filtered and dried. The lixiviant containing the heavy metals extracted from the phosphate ore is produced during the leaching treatment and recovered after filtration. The lixiviant is then treated with an acid to precipitate the heavy metals and regenerate the acid.

Phosphate rocks are subject to European and international regulations regarding their heavy metal content and more specifically Cd concentration in phosphate containing product. Given the new laws established, phosphate industries must meet the market’s needs in term of heavy metal content in the marketed products (Oosterhuis et al., 2000; Ulrich, 2018). Although viable techniques are being developed in upstream, midstream and downstream processes from phosphate beneficiation to fertilizers production, an effective process to remove or limit heavy metals in phosphate rocks at the first processing steps is more interesting. Indeed, reducing heavy metal concentration at early steps of the process will not only allow the use of phosphate rock directly as slow fertilizers but it will also minimize the number of processes to obtain phosphate containing products that comply with the standards in terms of heavy metal content which might add difficulty to the process and impact the cost.

Multiple techniques are being investigated; the project focuses on one of the techniques considered to decrease heavy metals content from phosphate ore which is acid leaching using organic chelating agents. The use of organic agents more specifically chelating agents with acidic properties such as Na2EDTA or DEHPA well known in the field of solvent extraction is a new option to achieve heavy metal removal and the first objective will be to find the right chelating agent. Moreover, the project aims to determine the reaction mechanism and explicit the complexity of the reactions involved when chelating agents are used on heterogeneous phosphate rocks to carry out the chemical treatment.