Jun 16, 2025

KFUPM’s Clean Combustion Lab Building a Net Zero Future

Inside a renovated storage room at KFUPM, a small team of seven researchers are quietly investigating a pressing global challenge, that of decarbonization. Dr. Sulaiman Alturaifi and his team members have built, from scratch, a combustion research lab focused on finding cleaner ways to power the world.

The lab isn’t about building the world’s next engines, however. It’s about building knowledge. The research would serve as baseline data for modelers and policymakers working to reduce emissions for power generation, aviation and other industries.

The team’s main tool is a shock tube reactor. It doesn’t look dramatic from the outside, but it’s engineered to recreate the fierce, high-pressure, high-temperature conditions found in engines and turbines. Combustion is recreated under tightly controlled, transient conditions. The shock tube can produce temperatures anywhere between 700 and 5000 Kelvins for only a few milliseconds. That temperature is brief enough to avoid damaging the equipment, but long enough to observe critical chemical reactions. During this instant, lasers pass through observation windows, capturing real-time data about how alternative fuels, such as ammonia and hydrogen, behave under combustion. This precision allows the lab to simulate engine conditions safely and repeatedly, producing high-quality data that will feed directly into KFUPM’s Interdisciplinary Research Center for Hydrogen Technologies and Carbon Management.

“At the end of the day,” Dr. Alturaifi says, “we know carbon-based fuels aren’t going away tomorrow. Our work is about creating a low-carbon pathway that’s based on science and applicable to the real world.”

What sets this lab apart is how it came to be. The team designed every part of the facility, amounting to 57 pieces of equipment and over 200 individual components, and had them all manufactured locally. The full build took six months with the assembly just under two months. “We built it ourselves, from design to installation. Even the room was renovated by our team,” Dr. Alturaifi remarks. A well-organized space, the lab operates according to strict safety standards. Containing multiple workbenches, the area is stocked with labeled glassware, metal-clad reaction vessels, secured gas cylinders, and all the essential tools needed to carry out the experiments.

Although still growing, the team involves multiple disciplines, such as mechanical and chemical engineering, chemistry, and physics. Undergraduate and postgraduate students, and even visiting high schoolers, contribute to a research culture that values both experimentation and mentorship.

Dr. Alturaifi is clear-eyed about the future; fossil fuels still have a role to play, but he sees a chance to reduce their carbon footprint through measurable change. By studying alternative energy sources that don’t emit carbon dioxide when burned, the lab supports efforts to shift toward cleaner combustion solutions that can be implemented without overhauling entire energy systems overnight. And sometimes, that starts with building your own lab, one bolt at a time.