CONFERENCE AGENDA

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CONFERENCE AGENDA

AI in Combustion
Future Fuels
Experimental and Numerical Combustion
Energy Transition Pathways
Keynote & Invited Lectures

DAY 1 — Wednesday, 16^th September 2026
DAY 2 — Thursday, 17^th September 2026

DAY 1 — Wednesday, 16^th September 2026
08:00 – 09:00	Registration and Arrival Coffee
09:00 – 09:50	Opening Ceremony and Welcome Remarks
09:50 – 10:00	Saudi Arabian Section of the Combustion Institute (SAS-CI) Update
10:00 – 10:45	Keynote Lecture 1 Artificial Intelligence–Driven Design of Sustainable Aviation Fuels Speaker: Prof. Mani Sarathy (KAUST)
10:45 – 11:00	Coffee Break & Innovation Showcase and Exhibition
11:00 – 11:45	Panel Discussion AI in Combustion Moderator: Dr. Fahad Alzahrani (KFUPM)
11:45 – 13:00	Lunch and Innovation Showcase and Exhibition
Session 1: AI in Combustion Chair: Dr. Abdul Gani Abdul Jameel
13:00 – 13:15	Development of Physics-Based Correlation for High-Pressure Gasoline Sprays Using Physics-Guided Machine Learning Sadique Khan, Fahad Alzahrani, KFUPM
13:15 – 13:30	A Framework for Facility-Agnostic Prediction of Non-Ideal Ignition in Shock Tubes Janardhanraj Subburaj, Touqeer Anwar Kashif, Aamir Farooq, KAUST
13:30 – 14:15	Panel Discussion Future Fuels Moderator: Dr. Abdullah AlRamadan (Aramco)
14:15 – 14:45	Coffee Break and Poster Session 1 AI in Combustion & Future Fuels
Session 2: Future Fuels Chair: Dr. Ahmed Abdelhafez · Vice-Chair: Dr. Naef Qasem
14:45 – 15:00	Standard Electrolyzer Test Cell Design for AEM Water Electrolysis Abdulhai Faqeeh and Mark Symes, King Khalid University
15:00 – 15:15	Entrained Flow Co-Gasification-Based Hydrogen Production from Plastic Waste and Waste Lubricant Oil Nishant Ranjan and Usama Ahmed, KFUPM
15:15 – 15:30	Enhanced Supercritical Water Gasification of Polyolefins over Rh-TUD Catalysts: Hydrogen Production, Coke Suppression, and Catalyst Stability Hengda Han, R. Churipard Sathyapal, Mengyan Wang, Ribhu Gautam, Fabiyan Angikath, Saumitra Saxena, Ajay K. Kumar Dalai and Bassam Dally, KAUST
15:30 – 15:45	CO/H2-Assisted Pre-Chamber Ignition for Methanol Combustion in a Heavy-Duty Engine Kalim Uddeen, Sadique Khan and James Turner, KAUST
15:45 – 16:00	Flame Transfer Functions and Flame Dynamics of Ammonia-Based and Low-Carbon Fuels in a Premixed Swirl Burner Ahmed Gaber H. Saif, Nader N. Shohdy, Thibault F. Guiberti, Esmail M. A. Mokheimer and Deanna A. Lacoste, KFUPM
16:00 – 16:15	High-Efficiency Ammonia Combustion Systems for Heavy-Duty Engines as an Enabler for Long-Distance Renewable Energy Export Dr. Matthias Thewes, FEV Group
16:15 – 17:00	Keynote Lecture 2 Combustion of Unconventional Fuels Speaker: Prof. Ahmed Ghoniem (MIT)
17:00 – 18:00	Energy Voice Debate Long-Term Gains of the Energy Transition Are Worth the Reliability Pains Along the Way Moderator: Dr. Ammar Alkhalifa (KFUPM)
18:00 – 19:00	Break / Transfer to Gala Dinner
19:00	Gala Dinner

POSTER SESSION 1 — 14:15 – 14:45 AI in Combustion & Future Fuels · 23 posters
Poster 1 AI in Combustion	Fuel Ignition Delay Time Prediction with Graph Neural Networks and Environment Conditioning Thiago Virginio — KAUST
Poster 2 AI in Combustion	Forecast-Horizon-Aware Machine Learning for CO2 Prediction in Combustion-Based Power Systems: A 47-State EPA Benchmark Ikram Moulay — KFUPM
Poster 3 AI in Combustion	Revealing the Experimental Patterns of Combustion Research with an LLM-Derived Knowledge Graph Yanpeng Ye — KAUST
Poster 4 Future Fuels	Effect of Electrode Structure on Energy Efficiency and Minimum Load Operation in Pressurized Alkaline Water Electrolysis Amit Kunte — KAUST
Poster 5 Future Fuels	Ni-Based Catalysts for Ammonia Decomposition as a Hydrogen Carrier Ali S. Ba-Tuq — KFUPM
Poster 6 Future Fuels	Technical Performance of Integrating In-Well Hydrogen Production with Natural Gas-Fired Gas Turbine Power Systems Miguel Angel Martinez Alarcon — KFUPM
Poster 7 Future Fuels	Pure Hydrogen Production from Municipal Solid Waste by Integrated Gasification, Water-Gas Shift, and Calcium Looping Kaleem Ullah — KFUPM
Poster 8 Future Fuels	Why Hydrogen Direct-Injection Penetration Correlations Do Not Transfer Between Facilities: A Reporting Audit of Sixteen Non-Reacting Studies Abayenew Chanie — KFUPM
Poster 9 Future Fuels	A Novel Waste Glycerol–Assisted Chemical Looping Process for Hydrogen Production from Heavy Fuel Oil Ali Al-Qadri — KFUPM
Poster 10 Future Fuels	Electrochemical Hydrogen Production from the H₂S–I₂ Cycle Using PEM Electrolysis Aiisha Nurmanova — KAUST
Poster 11 Future Fuels	Enhancement of Pd- & Pt-based H2-SCR Catalyst Baqer Aljaman — KAUST
Poster 12 Future Fuels	High-Temperature Oxidation of Ammonia/Toluene Mixtures: NH3 and CO Time Histories Behind Reflected Shock Waves Mohamed Amin Alya — KFUPM
Poster 13 Future Fuels	Integrated Methanol-to-Gasoline Process Design for Low-Aromatic Gasoline: Aspen Process Modeling and Techno-Economic Assessment Md Zafar Ali Khan — KAUST
Poster 14 Future Fuels	High Temperature Kinetics of Ammonia-Alcohol Blends in Shock Tubes Mahmoud E. Hasan — KFUPM
Poster 15 Future Fuels	Effects of Pressure Ratio and Superheat Ratio on Flash-Boiling Ammonia Spray Structure Using VOF-Based CFD Simulations Mohammad Raghib Shakeel — KAUST
Poster 16 Future Fuels	Kinetic Modeling and Optimization of High-Sulfur Petroleum Coke Gasification for Hydrogen-Rich Syngas Production: A Saudi Refinery Case Study Fakebba Drammeh — KFUPM
Poster 17 Future Fuels	Combustion Characteristics and Emission Performance of a Heavy-Duty Spark-Ignition Engine Fueled with Methanol–Hydrogen Blends Mebin Panithasan — KAUST
Poster 18 Future Fuels	Techno-economic Analysis of Methanol Production from Saudi Arabian Palm Date Leaves Biomass Wan Al Aidi Syahrouqan — KFUPM
Poster 19 Future Fuels	Experimental–Numerical Investigation of a High-Flux Volumetric Solar Receiver for H₂S Conversion and Hydrogen Production Mohamed H. Anwer — KAUST
Poster 20 Future Fuels	Effects of Ceria, TiO2, Ni and Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) on the Combustion and Emission Characteristics of a Methanol-Hydrogen Dual-Fuel SI Engine Alaa Khedr — KFUPM
Poster 21 Future Fuels	Experimental Investigation of Jet Velocity Effects on Flashback and NOx Emissions in a Hydrogen-Rich Micromixer Burner Shehab Mansour — KFUPM
Poster 22 Future Fuels	Extinction Stability and NO Formation of Wobbe-Matched Hydrogen/Natural Gas Blends in Counterflow Diffusion Flames. Mohanad Shamsan — KAUST
Poster 23 Future Fuels	Equal-Power Methanol Substitution Suppresses Knock Without Derating in a Variable-Compression Hydrogen CFR Engine Riming Xu — KAUST

DAY 2 — Thursday, 17^th September 2026
08:00 – 08:15	Arrival Coffee and Networking
08:15 – 09:00	Keynote Lecture 3 Mixture Inhomogeneities in Turbulent Combustion Speaker: Prof. Assaad Masri (The University of Sydney)
Session 3: Experimental and Numerical Combustion Chair: Dr. Ali Elkhazraji · Vice-Chair: Dr. Medhat Nemitallah
09:00 – 09:15	Experimental and Kinetic Study of Methyl Formate Oxidation in a Shock Tube Belal Belal and Sulaiman A. Alturaifi, KFUPM
09:15 – 09:30	High-Fidelity Numerical Simulations of Transition-to-Extinction in Ammonia-Hydrogen Flames Suliman Abdelwahid, Junjun Guo, Mohammad Rafi Malik, Francisco E. Hernández-Pérez and Hong G. Im, KAUST
09:30 – 09:45	Knock Characteristics of Direct Injection Hydrogen Engine and Effects of Pre-Chamber Ignition on Knock Yilin Xue, Xinyang Wang and James W.G. Turner, KAUST
09:45 – 10:00	A Shock-Tube and Laser Absorption Spectroscopy Study of High-Temperature Ethane/Nitric Oxide Interactions Khair Ghunaim, Mahmoud E. Hasan, Belal Y. Belal, Ali Elkhazraji and Sulaiman A. Alturaifi, KFUPM
10:00 – 10:15	Oil-Induced Ignition in Premixed Methane/Air: Localized Ignition Characteristics of Engine Lubricating Oils Mohammad Adil, Touqeer Anwar Kashif, Janardhanraj Subburaj, Frank T Hong, Yasser Qahtani, Emre Cenker and Aamir Farooq, KAUST
10:15 – 10:30	Coffee Break
10:30 – 11:15	Keynote Lecture 4 Synergy as Path to Decarbonize Hard to Abate Sectors Speaker: Prof. Bassam Dally (KAUST)
11:15 – 12:00	Panel Discussion Energy Transition Pathways Moderator: Dr. Amir F. N. Abdul Manan (Aramco)
12:00 – 13:15	Lunch
Session 4: Energy Transition Pathways Chair: Prof. Esmail Mokheimer · Vice-Chair: Dr. Husain Baaqel
13:15 – 13:30	Should Ammonia Carry Hydrogen and Fuel the Ship? Economic and Environmental Tradeoffs Bima Prasetya Pancasakti, Shashank Sakleshpur Nagaraja and S Mani Sarathy, KAUST
13:30 – 13:45	Turquoise Hydrogen and Carbon Black Co-Production via Microwave Plasma Methane Pyrolysis: Techno-Economic and Life-Cycle Assessment for Saudi Arabia Ammar Alkhalifa, Fayez Al-Rowaili, Aqil Jamal, Umer Zahid and Awad Alquaity, KFUPM
13:45 – 14:00	Hydrogen Pathways for Decarbonizing Long-Haul Freight in Saudi Arabia: A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment Yazeed Hamed, Awad Alquaity and Fahad Alzahrani, KFUPM
14:00 – 14:15	Real-Time Hydrogen Fluoride Detection in Overcharged Li-Ion Batteries Ahmad Alsewailem, Janardhanraj Subburaj, Matthew J. Dunn, Assaad R. Masri, and Aamir Farooq, KAUST
14:15 – 14:30	Feasibility Assessment of Sustainable Methanol Production in Northern Africa and Comparable Middle Eastern Contexts Dr. Daniel Neumann, FEV Consulting GmbH
14:30 – 15:00	Coffee Break and Poster Session 2 Experimental and Numerical Combustion & Energy Transition Pathways
15:00 – 16:00	Innovation Showcase and Exhibition
16:00 – 16:30	Invited Lecture 1 The Emerging Future of AI in Combustion Speaker: Prof. Venkat Raman (University of Michigan)
16:30 – 17:00	Invited Lecture 2 Past and Present Transitions in Transportation Fuels Speaker: Prof. André Boehman (University of Michigan)
17:00 – 17:30	SAS-CI Awards and Closing Ceremony

POSTER SESSION 2 — 14:30 – 15:00 Experimental and Numerical Combustion & Energy Transition Pathways · 23 posters
Poster 24 Experimental and Numerical Combustion	Intramolecular hydrogen bonding affects laminar flame propagation of oxygenated renewable fuels: A case study of PODE3 and its branched isomer Qilong Fang — KAUST
Poster 25 Experimental and Numerical Combustion	Decoupling-based lumped kinetic modeling for transportation fuel combustion informed by micro flow reactor oxidation of iso-octane and ethylbenzene Chuangchuang Cao — KAUST
Poster 26 Experimental and Numerical Combustion	Ammonia Crack (NH₃/H₂/N₂) Bluff Body-stabilized Colorless Distributed Combustion: A RANS Study Hafidz Azhar Jakaria — KFUPM
Poster 27 Experimental and Numerical Combustion	Numerical Fire Safety Modeling and Prevention Strategies for Real-World Engineering Scenarios Hadj Miloua — University Djillali Liabes
Poster 28 Experimental and Numerical Combustion	Combustion Characteristics and Fuel Upgrading of Torrefied Microalgae Biomass Ahmad Nawaz — KFUPM
Poster 29 Experimental and Numerical Combustion	Numerical Investigation of Combustion Performance and NO Emissions of Carbon-Free Ammonia-Hydrogen Blends in a Turbulent Jet Flame Uriel Castilla — KFUPM
Poster 30 Experimental and Numerical Combustion	High-Speed Optical Investigation of Ethanol–Butanol–Gasoline Flame Propagation in a Constant-Volume Combustion Chamber Mhadi A. Ismael — KFUPM
Poster 31 Experimental and Numerical Combustion	Effect of Stratification on Combustion Characteristics and Thermoacoustic Instability of H2-C3H8-Air Flames Ahmed Gaber H. Saif — KFUPM
Poster 32 Experimental and Numerical Combustion	Numerical Assessment of Distributed Hydrogen Injection Using Single- and Multi-Strut Configurations in a Scramjet Combustor Mussa Demewez Ali — KFUPM
Poster 33 Experimental and Numerical Combustion	Experimental and Chemical-Kinetic Investigation of Ethanol–Gasoline Blends in a Single-Cylinder Engine Tri Susilo Wirawan — KFUPM
Poster 34 Experimental and Numerical Combustion	Oxidation of Ethane–Nitrous Oxide Mixtures Behind Reflected Shock Waves: CO and CO2 Time Histories and Ignition Delay Times. Mohammed K. Elfakharany — KFUPM
Poster 35 Experimental and Numerical Combustion	Combustion Characteristics of Highly Cracked Green Ammonia in Turbulent Non-Premixed Flames Elsayed Abdelhameed — KFUPM
Poster 36 Energy Transition Pathways	Where Should Renewable Gasoline Be Produced? A Multi-Country Techno-Economic Assessment of Solar, Wind, and Hybrid Pathways Bima Pancasakti — KAUST
Poster 37 Energy Transition Pathways	Energy and Carbon-Capture Assessment of a PSA-Integrated Oxy-Fuel Catalytic Heat Exchanger for Pressurized SOFC–MTG Systems Badamasi Babaji — KAUST
Poster 38 Energy Transition Pathways	Techno-Economic Assessment of Sustainable Aviation Fuel Production from Oxy-Fuel Cement Kiln CO₂ via Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis Chiara Canciani — KAUST
Poster 39 Energy Transition Pathways	Revealing lignin–urea–KOH interaction networks for N-doped hierarchical porous bio-carbon with high capacitive performance Mian Xu — KAUST
Poster 40 Energy Transition Pathways	Life Cycle Assessment of an Airbus A319: Phase Level Impacts and Energy Transition Relevance Shadman Haque — Independent researcher, Cardiff, UK
Poster 41 Energy Transition Pathways	Sustainable Biodiesel Synthesis from Alkanna tinctoria Oil Catalyzed by Crab Shell-Derived Biochar: A Comprehensive Modeling Approach Muhammad Ali Hamid — KFUPM
Poster 42 Energy Transition Pathways	Waste to Power Employing an Efficient Conversion Configuration Sk Arafat Zaman — KFUPM
Poster 43 Energy Transition Pathways	Surface Functionalized Graphene Oxide-Alumina Nanocomposite as Lubricating Oil Additive: Performance and Synergistic Mechanism Suprakash Samanta — KAUST
Poster 44 Energy Transition Pathways	The effect of pretreatment methods on the performance of petroleum pitch-derived carbons as electrodes for supercapacitors Adrian Rodriguez — KAUST
Poster 45 Energy Transition Pathways	Transient Load Response of a 65 kWe Automotive PEM Fuel Cell Fatimah Almaskin — KAUST
Poster 46 Energy Transition Pathways	Heavy-Oil Surrogate Formulation Based on FT-ICR MS Analysis Edwin Guevara — KAUST