Director of the University of Nottingham’s Centre for Clean Water Technologies.

Making sure the world’s population has enough drinking water is one of the biggest challenges we face today. A rapidly increasing global population, the fact that only a very small percentage of global water is available for consumption and an uneven global distribution of clean drinking water are the main problems in regard to the current global water crisis.

Professor Hilal discusses these problems and some of the possible solutions the University’s Centre for Clean Water Technologies is currently researching. He discusses advances the centre has made, such as the development of membrane technology to aid in the re-use of water.

The world-leading reputation for research that Professor Hilal has earned in the fields of membrane technology and water treatment have been formally recognized by the award of the prestigious “Kuwait Prize of Applied Science for Water Resources Development” for the year 2005. This prize is one of the highest scientific honours awarded in the Middle East for intellectual achievement. It marked the first time that the award had been made to an academic in a UK university.