Motasem Saidan

Motasem Saidan
University of Jordan | UJ · Department of Chemical Engineering

Minister of Water and Irrigation; Director of Water, Energy, Environment Center, PhD, Post Doc, IWM

About

87
Publications
131,804
Reads
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1,815
Citations
Introduction
Professor of environmental engineering, management & technology, Motasem Saidan, carries out scientific research in the areas of water and wastewater treatment, solid & hazardous waste management, cleaner production and pollution prevention, chemical process safety and hazard management, air pollution control and dispersion modeling, and environmental impact assessment. Moreover, Dr. Saidan is a specialist in globally harmonized system (GHS) and chemical communication, as well as, in unintentional persistent organic pollutants (UPOPs) inventory. In December 2015, Dr. Saidan is awarded "International Solid Waste Expert" title from ISWA, Vienna, Austeria.
Additional affiliations
September 2019 - November 2019
University of Jordan
Position
  • Professor
September 2015 - present
University of Jordan
Position
  • Professor (Associate)
September 2012 - September 2015
University of Jordan
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)
Education
December 2015 - December 2020
International Solid Waste Association (ISWA)
Field of study
  • Solid Waste Management

Publications

Publications (87)
Article
Full-text available
The current research focuses on assessing the potential of municipal solid waste (MSW) conversion into biofuel using pyrolysis process. The MSW samples were taken from Zaatari Syrian Refugee Camp. The physical and chemical characteristics of MSW were studied using proximate and elemental analysis. The results showed that moisture content of MSW is...
Chapter
Full-text available
This study aims to provide analyses and assessment of Jordan’s responses and actions in the first 150 days since March 2, 2020. The present study focuses on the emerging cases COVID-19 in Jordan, investigates the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19, and assesses the concise responses and initiatives to lessen such impacts. Analytical method was adop...
Book
10.1007/978-3-030-67151-8_5 This study aims to provide analyses and assessment of Jordan’s responses and actions in the first 150 days since March 2, 2020. The present study focuses on the emerging cases COVID-19 in Jordan, investigates the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19, and assesses the concise responses and initiatives to lessen such impact...
Article
Full-text available
Estimating the generation of e-waste in governorates is critically needed for sustainable and environmentally sound e-waste management in Jordan. The main objectives of the present study are to quantify and evaluate the annual e-waste generation in all governorates in Jordan and disposal practices. The present study comprises the information of e-w...
Article
Full-text available
COVID-19 has posed an unprecedented global public health threat and caused a significant number of severe cases that necessitated long hospitalization and overwhelmed health services in the most affected countries. In response, governments initiated a series of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) that led to severe economic and social impacts....
Article
Full-text available
Legionella pneumophila (L. pneumophila) is an opportunistic waterborne pathogen which can be transmitted to humans. Transmission to humans mainly happens through the inhalation of contaminated aerosols which can cause Legionellosis and public health concerns. The present cross-sectional study provides the first L. pneumophila contamination assessme...
Article
Full-text available
Background: The reproduction number (R0) is vital in epidemiology to estimate the number infected people and trace the close contacts. The R0 values varies depending on social activity and type of gathering events that induce infection transmissibility, in addition to its pathophysiology dependence. Objectives: In this study, we estimated the prob...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background: COVID-19 has posed an unprecedented global public health threat and caused a significant number of severe cases that necessitated long hospitalization and overwhelmed the health services in most affected countries. In response, the governments initiated a series of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) that led to severe economic and...
Article
The present study investigates the potentiality of organic waste-to-compost production and viability of waste sorting and recycling in vulnerable areas. The study provides financial analysis of the operation of such compost production and waste sorting and recycling facilities in Jordan, while taking into account the facilities' intake capacities,...
Article
Full-text available
The present study outlines a cohesive compilation of analysis of the involvement of women in decision-making and leadership in the solid waste sector in Jordan. The socioeconomic challenges have been catalyzed by the influx of Syrian refugees into the host communities and camps in Jordan. Hence, deterioration of municipal solid waste services have...
Article
Full-text available
The present study quantified the industrial water demand and reclamation and identified the scale of water-intensive industries in Jordan. Five industrial sectors including 395 industrial factories were surveyed by means of a structured questionnaire. The gathered data that were assessed included all industrial sectors, number of employees, the typ...
Article
Full-text available
Water scarcity remains the major looming challenge that is facing Jordan. Wastewater reclamation is considered as an alternative source of fresh water in semi-arid areas with water shortage or increased consumption. In the present study, the current status of wastewater reclamation and reuse in Jordan was analyzed considering 30 wastewater treatmen...
Article
Paper mill sludge (PMS) can be efficiently utilized to produce fuels and chemicals. However, wastewater is usually generated during the de-ashing step of the PMS for fibrous materials recovery. Per process requirements, the wastewater stream must be treated which results in an increase in the overall process production cost. Therefore, this researc...
Chapter
It is undeniable that solid waste management in the Syrian refugees host communities was one of the most challenging services to be properly provided to the vulnerable communities by municipalities in Jordan. This paper presents the current waste generation and composition for both Irbid and Mafraq which are considered urban and rural areas, respec...
Article
Full-text available
To tackle climate change and secure energy supplies, many countries invest heavily on wind energy as it is a clean source and is becoming more cost effective with the technological advancement and increased capacity per unit installed. The investigation of the availability of wind resources is an essential step of any feasibility study of a wind fa...
Conference Paper
The limitation in the allowed new capacities of renewable energy sources to be connected to the electric utility grid is a challenge. This limitation will form an obstacle in expanding towards full dependence on the clean available resource of electricity in Jordan. Battery electricity storage system (BESS) can be a solution for this limitation, an...
Article
Full-text available
The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) production from municipal solid waste (MSW) generated in Jordan using a biodrying process for coprocessing in cement kilns in the region. At the end of the biodrying process, the mass of waste was reduced on average by approximately 35% when the dried waste was di...
Article
Full-text available
Legionella pneumophila was detected in 47.4% of the samples taken from three hotels' water distribution systems examined, while in 29.8% counts exceeded 1,000 CFU L-1. The highest positive legionella contamination in point-of-use is observed in cold sink (33%) followed by hot showerhead (22.2%) with higher mean value obtained in: 4.11 and 3.85 CFU...
Article
This study presents a baseline assessment of carbon emissions in water utilities in Madaba, Jordan. Energy Performance and Carbon Emissions Assessment and Monitoring Tool (ECAM) is applied in the present study in order to reduce indirect and direct emissions. Input data for the assessment included inter alia, population, water volumes, energy consu...
Chapter
Full-text available
The present study explored the physicochemical properties of compost made from different segregated bio-waste row materials. Four experimental wind-row piles were constructed from different types of organic waste (fruit, vegetable, and garden waste), initiated and monitored. Plant residues and sawdust were used as bulking agents to provide the requ...
Article
Full-text available
Hydrogen produced from chlor-alkali plants in Jordan is typically wasted and vented to the atmosphere. If it is recovered and utilized then it can viably play a significant role for process heat on site. This study demonstrates how cleaner production can be applied to the chlor-alkali industry, with focus on utilization of hydrogen as energy resour...
Article
Full-text available
Struvite precipitation is a well-known problem in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) as it causes clogging in pumps and pipes. However, controlled struvite recovery from sewage sludge can reduce these problems. The special feature of the present study is the pilot-scale reactor applied to study the efficiency of the designed system in struvite rec...
Chapter
Full-text available
In this study, four pilot-scale experiments were conducted to produce good quality, low-cost composting technology from different types of organic waste (fruit, vegetable, and garden waste) using plant residues and sawdust as bulking agents to provide the required C/N ratio needed for efficient decomposition. This included investigation of the foll...
Article
Full-text available
The inefficient solid waste management (SWM) affects negatively the environment and the community health. That is why the SWM sector should take serious precautions and measures to address the growing rate of solid waste (SW) generation noting its characteristics (composition), proper collection and disposing methods in a manner aiming its impact d...
Article
Full-text available
The potential benefits of the application of a circular economy-converting biomass at Zaʹatari Syrian refugee camps into energy-was investigated in this study. Representative organic waste and sludge samples were collected from the camp, mixed in different ratios, and analyzed in triplicate for potential biogas yield. Numerous calorific tests were...
Article
Full-text available
The Montreal Protocol’s Multilateral Fund is often hailed as a key component of strategies aimed at reducing the amount of ozone-depleting substances in the less-developed countries. Yet, while there are studies that exemplify how the fund has been implemented as well as the strategies that individual countries adopt, there is still a lack of acade...
Article
Full-text available
Non-revenue water (NRW) is a major challenge for urban water security in Jordan. Quantifying leakage and pinpointing the location of leaks are difficult tasks in intermittent supply systems. This study aims to provide a structured analysis to determine the volume of leakage and its components in Madaba’s water distribution network. The study also o...
Article
Full-text available
The present study investigated the source characterization of the polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) into sediments of Aqaba Coastal City. Air samples from four location sites and sediment samples from five stations on the Jordanian coast of the Gulf of Aqaba, including 25 individual sediment samples merged by station to...
Article
Full-text available
Energy sector in Jordan faces serious challenges today. Jordan as a non-oil country depends by 96% on imported fuel to cover its demands. The present work seeks to improve an alternative fuel that can support the goals of National Energy Strategy in Jordan. Therefore; a mathematical model was developed to investigate the possibility of producing so...
Article
Full-text available
This study is conducted to investigate the characteristics of outflow wastewater of the 1 m 3 on-site wastewater treatment unit on the basis of the testing and measurement data of the samples that were taken during the study monitored period (August 2017 to January 2018). For this purpose, samples were taken on a weekly basis from the treated waste...
Article
Full-text available
The Montreal Protocol’s Multilateral Fund is often hailed as a key component of strategies aimed at reducing the amount of ozone-depleting substances in the lessdeveloped countries. Yet, while there are studies that exemplify how the fund has been implemented as well as the strategies that individual countries adopt, there is still a lack of academ...
Article
Full-text available
A process improvement in a tablet manufacturing process within a pharmaceutical industry was carried out based on an eco-efficiency approach. As it is one of the most energy consuming processes in the production line, the tablet manufacturing process was considered. It has the highest production volume with a complicated and long manufacturing prod...
Article
Full-text available
Chlorine decay behavior is significantly variable since it depends on the quality of water and the condition of distribution system. This paper describes the effect of various parameters on the bulk chlorine decay kinetics in the water samples collected from Zai water treatment plant in Jordan. These parameters are reaction time, temperature, TOC,...
Article
There is a need for Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) stream characterization and composition analysis to allow for an accurate estimation of its recycling potential and for effective management of the entire system. Recycling provides employment and a livelihood for vulnerable social groups such as refugees. The aim of this paper is to determine the com...
Article
Full-text available
Reducing environmental impacts and getting economic benefits, based on the waste utilization, and on the reduction of both energy consumption and organic load, was the driver of the implementation of cleaner production assessment in a poultry industry and its related processes. The main objective of this study is to examine the feasibility of using...
Article
Full-text available
The plastic bags waste littering problem is significantly increasing in Jordan and becomes a pressing issue. However, no comprehensive policy has been so far advanced. The main objective of this study is to advance and assess different scenarios to control the use of plastic bags based on enviro-socio-economic impacts analysis. The results obtained...
Book
Full-text available
Your Guide to Waste Management in Jordan: Waste Sorting Informative booklet
Article
Full-text available
This paper promotes environmental ethics as a tool for sustainable water resources management in the Arab region. The approach is combination of cultural, ethical, and social marketing that is propagating social learning and have "bottom-up" education and communication functions, as well as "top-down" high level applied research aspects with indust...
Article
Full-text available
It is essential to develop proper emission inventories for the PCDD/PCDFs pollutants in Jordan in order to assess the possible effects of these pollutants on the environment. This study presents PCDD/PCDF emission inventory in Aqaba using a standardized toolkit developed by UNEP Chemicals. The total emission rate in Aqaba was estimated as 0.875 g T...
Article
Full-text available
This study investigates the potential of harvesting rainwater in buildings roofs in a populated urban area in Amman City using GIS techniques. Amman City has a mean annual rainfall of 378 mm, which makes rainwater harvesting viable and feasible. The rainfall data recorded at 7 different weather stations were processed statistically to produce relia...
Article
Full-text available
This study investigates the potential of harvesting rainwater in buildings roofs in populated urban area in Amman City using GIS techniques. Amman City has a mean annual rainfall of 378mm which makes rainwater harvesting viable and feasible. The rainfall data recorded at 7 different weather stations were processed statistically to produce reliable...
Article
Full-text available
Chlorine disinfection of drinking water containing natural organic matter leads to the formation of brominated trihalomethanes (THMs) in the presence of bromide ions. In the present study, the results of an experimental investigation into the factors forming THMs in the presence of bromide ions are presented. The experiments were conducted using sa...
Article
Full-text available
Water quality model is a helpful management tool for water distribution system. Estimation of growth coefficients is an important and challenging component of water quality modeling. Reactions occurring in the bulk flow for both trihalomethanes (THMs) formation and chlorine decay kinetics in Zai drinking water have been studied. It was found that b...
Article
Full-text available
Electronic waste (E-waste) is recently perceived to be a problem confined to Jordan. The changing of economic scenarios and the global technological development has contributed the amount of E-waste to become part of the waste stream in Jordan. The necessary regulations regarding the E-waste are not yet in place. Therefore, a reliable estimation of...
Article
Full-text available
Water quality model is a helpful management tool for water distribution system. Estimation of growth coefficients is an important and challenging component of water quality modeling. Reactions occurring in the bulk flow for both trihalomethanes (THMs) formation and chlorine decay kinetics in Zai drinking water have been studied. It was found that b...
Article
Full-text available
The activity coefficients and equilibrium constant of commercial potash produced by the APC in Jordan were estimated using the Pitzer’s model. The equilibrium constant was found to correlate with saturation temperature using the equation (Ksp = 0.3505 T(C). Good agreement was found between the estimated values of Ksp in this study and those estima...
Article
Full-text available
This paper evaluates the effect of addition of precipitated lignin, from spent pulping black liquor, to a wet single-ply linerboard handsheet followed by hotpressing at different temperatures, on the improvement of its compressive strength. Linerboard handsheets for testing the effect of lignin addition were prepared so that the lignin-modified she...
Article
Full-text available
The production of high purity KCl from commercial potassium chloride (96% KCl) produced at the Arab Potash Company in Jordan is investigated using Mixed-Suspension Mixed-Product-Removal crystallizer. The effect of both the residence time and the level of supersaturation on the purity of the crystalline product and on the kinetic parameters of cryst...
Article
Full-text available
Total Trihalomethanes (THMs) content can vary greatly, depending both on water quality and on treatment conditions, in the same water supply system. Most municipal water treatment plants use chlorine to keep water biologically safe during the distribution process. The effect of various parameters on the formation of THMs has been studied in this in...
Article
Full-text available
This study presented the effect of heating temperature on the biochemical changes during thermal sterilization of concentrated cherry ju ice. Natural convection heating of a viscous liquid (concentrated cherry ju ice 74° Brix) in a cylindrical can heating fro m all sides has been simulated and analy zed. The governing equations are solved numerical...
Article
Full-text available
This paper evaluates the effect of heat treating of linerboard for improvement of its stiffness and compressive strength. The experiments and testing of the physical and strength properties were conducted according to TAPPI test methods. The results revealed that heat treatment of linerboard at 200℃ increases themachine-direction and cross-directio...
Article
Full-text available
Electronic waste is recently perceived as a problem confined to Jordan. The necessary regulations regarding the E-Waste are not yet in place. The principal aim of this study was to examine the public responses and level of awareness of E-waste among residential. Structured questionnaire survey was designed and demographically distributed to a rando...