Membrane processes for water treatment and desalination.
Brine management and mining.
Membrane fouling and cleaning, alternative membrane cleaning and fouling alleviation strategies.
Control of emerging contaminants and disinfection by-products in water supplies.

• H. Elcik, A. Alpatova, G. Gonzalez-Gil, B. Blankert, N. Farhat, N. A. Amin, J. S. Vrouwenvelder, and N. Ghaffour, Elucidating Biofouling over Thermal and Spatial Gradients in Seawater Membrane Distillation in Hot Climatic Conditions, Water Res., 223, 118983 (2022).
• A. Alpatova, A. Qamar, M. Alhaddad, S. Kerdi, H. S. Son, N. Amin, and N. Ghaffour, In Situ Conductive Spacers for Early Pore Wetting Detection and Performance Enhancement in Membrane Distillation, Sep. Purif. Technol., 294, 121162 (2022).
• A. Alpatova, A. Qamar, M. Al-Ghamdi, J.-G. Lee, and N. Ghaffour, Effective Membrane Backwash with Carbon Dioxide under Severe Fouling and Operation Conditions, J. Membr. Sci., 611, 118290 (2020).
• A.Alpatova, A. S. Alsaadi, M. Alharthi, J.-G. Lee, and N. Ghaffour, Co-Axial Hollow Fiber Module for Air Gap Membrane Distillation, J. Membr. Sci., 578, 172-182 (2019).
• A. Alpatova, A. Alsaadi, and N. Ghaffour, Boron Evaporation in Thermally-Driven Seawater Desalination: Effect of Temperature and Operating Conditions, J. Hazard. Mat., 351, 224-231 (2018).

• Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA – 2010.
• M.Sc. in Environmental Diagnosis, Faculty of Life Sciences, Imperial College, London, UK – 2004

• 2019-Present: Research Scientist, KAUST
• 2016-2019: Postdoctoral Researcher, KAUST

• Water Desalination and Reuse Center (WDRC)