Metal Organic Frameworks Group

Dr. Rana Sabouni earned her MESc and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Western University (Canada) in 2009 and 2013, respectively. She worked as a Post-Doctorate at Western University until joining American University of Sharjah as assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering in September 2014. Since then, Dr. Rana Sabouni has been actively involved with significant contributions in research and teaching, in addition to university and community service.

Dr. Rana Sabouni’s current research interest focuses on implementing nano-materials, specifically Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) for drug delivery, and wastewater treatment applications. Her current research in the drug delivery applications involves two area: first, the synthesis of novel nanocarriers incorporating Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) as drug delivery vehicles using facile synthesis techniques such as microwave irradiation, and second, the implementation of novel targeting stimulant using ultrasound irradiation to improve the drug release behavior and kinetics. Research in the wastewater treatment area concentrates on the removal of micro-pollutant from wastewater by MOFs in batch and continuous approaches. Dr. Rana Sabouni was awarded several grants since joining AUS in 2014 including : SEED grant ( AED 15,000), Faculty Research Grants (two in 2015-2017 PI, 2016-2018 Co-PI, AED 100,000),  in addition to other Enhanced Faculty Research Grants (2018-2020 PI, AED 150,000), and Biomedical and Bioscience Research Instituted Grants (Co-PI 2018-2020, 500, 000 AED). Dr. Rana Sabouni has published over 22 peer-reviewed journal papers, in addition to number of conference papers/abstracts, one book chapter and filed one patent.

On the teaching side, Dr. Rana Sabouni has always been keen and succeeded in adopting new teaching methodologies and implemented them in improving the students teaching experience. She has been actively involved in several faulty teaching development workshops and short courses in the AUS, in addition to Universities in Canada, and USA. Recently, Dr. Rana participated as the Chemical Engineering Department representative among the AUS delegation to the WPI Project-Based Learning workshop held in Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Boston, USA, with delegates from more than 26 Universities. The experience gained has been shared with other colleagues at AUS, and directly implemented in number of courses she is teaching.  

With regard to the University and Community services, Dr. Sabouni has noticeable continuous contributions since she joined the AUS 2014.

Current research projects:

In the past few decades, metal organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as a new class of crystalline porous materials with potential in several engineering applications; including: gas separation, adsorption and storage, heterogeneous catalysis, pharmaceutical manufacturing processes, and drug delivery carriers. Recently, MOFs have been deployed as sensors, semiconductors in microelectronic, photocatalytic and photovoltaic devises. This is mainly due to their unique combination of optical and electronic properties.  MOFs have advantages over other porous materials, because of their high surface areas, diverse architectures, tunable shape and size with unique hydrophilic and hydrophobic entities that can be adapted to the physio-chemical properties of the drug and its application. The main objective of my research group is to develop new facile MOFs and investigate their applications in the drug delivery and wastewater treatment areas.  Further research topics are listed here.