Tunisia launches first nanotech project - SciDev.Net

Tunisia launches first nanotech project - SciDev.Net: "Tunisia launches first nanotech project

Hichem Boumedjout

11 January 2010 | EN
MedjerdaRiver_Wikicommons_DrFO-Jr-Tn.jpg

Nanotechnology will grace the Medjerda, the longest river in Tunisia

Wikicommons/DrFO.Jr.Tn.

[ALGIERS] Tunisia has launched the first project applying nanotechnology in the Arab Maghreb region of north western Africa.

The project aims to monitor and purify the waters of the Medjerda River, the longest river in Tunisia.

Three mobile laboratories will monitor river water, after which data will be analysed at a new research centre. The laboratories will then be mobilised to expand the project to other areas of the country.

'Tunisia is exposed to water crises due to climate change. Rivers and groundwater will be an important part of the solution, and the government has given us the green light to act on that,' Mohammed Ben Hussein, project manager at Tunisia's National Agency of Environmental Protection, told SciDev.Net."