Determining the properties of materials has always been one of the primary goals of research in materials science. Computational models for materials’ property determination are hindered by their high computational cost; it can take weeks (even years) to develop and evaluate a computational model for a single property of a single material. The current approach […]

  This unique approach to product and process design involves 2 intimately associated activities: development of novel structured composite materials (SCM) in the form of latexes; and the related design of a coagulator to tailor the final particle size distribution of the composite latex particles. If produced correctly, SCM can provide society with useful, valuable […]

    Agri-Therm Inc. is a Canadian company developing commercial mobile reactor technology for the production of biofuels and valuable chemicals from agricultural residues. The company operates a pilot plant at a shared research facility with the Institute for Chemicals and Fuels from Alternative Resources (ICFAR) and The University of Western Ontario. As part of their collaboration with the […]

  Discarded unattended waste slag soon becomes acidic resulting in an uncontrolled source, thereby releasing metals to the environment by a process known as Acid Mine Drainage (AMD). Traditional Pyrometallurgical methods to extract base metals from ore tailings have focused on using acid that is produced locally as a result of smelting operations, and Oxygen […]

  This research will investigate blends of polypropylene with a novel polyampholyte elastomer, which can serve as alternatives to traditional thermoplastic vulcanizates. This approach will enable the dispersion of physically crosslinked elastomeric particles inside a PP matrix, with potential benefits in terms of mechanical properties, weatherability, fatigue and abrasion resistance, and good impact properties at […]

  Indoor air quality has received immense attention in past decades, considering it is more heavily polluted than outdoor environments. People generally spend more than 80% of their time indoors, which contributes to a higher risk of inhaling pollutants. Air cleaning is the most feasible way to improve indoor air quality. Most of indoor air […]

  Emerging contaminants in drinking water are coming under increasing scrutiny as hazards to human and aquatic health. These compounds include pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals, Endocrine Disrupting Compounds, and others. At present, the technologies for treating these compounds are costly and inefficient. Photocatalysis has been identified as a promising technique for treating these emerging contaminants in […]

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and Campbell Scientific Canada Corp. (CSC) have been operating an “eddy covariance” meteorological tower near Lacombe, Alberta that measures the flux of carbon dioxide (CO2) between agricultural fields and the atmosphere. This tower provides high frequency data that is used to assess plant growth and decomposition across large fields which […]

Numerous industries and government agencies carry out analyses every day using inductively coupled plasma (ICP) instruments that typically waste 95% of the sample. A greener approach would not generate any sample waste. During this project, an infrared heated pre-evaporation tube will be developed and coupled to nebulizers from the industrial partner so as to allow […]

In industries, chemical processes involve different plants running in parallel with different production rates under the strict constraints on available resources. Therefore, events like shutdown of one or more plants, operating plants with different production grades with flexible run length time, equipment utilization rates of different plants etc. are vital to be studied, scheduled, and […]

The fast-growing market demand for food products with high nutritional qualities requires innovative and sustainable technologies. The proposed process employs an electrostatic technique to selectively charge proteins, carbohydrates, fibers, and other components in the bean flour and separate them based on the magnitude and type of their charge. The proposed methodology produces protein-rich flour from […]

The proposed research project is around re conducting feasibility studies on the purification and conditioning of industrial hemicellulosic C5 sugars from a number of potentially commercial wheat straw liquor fractions. The research will propose experiments where data for the ultimate evaluation of enzymatic hydrolysis vs. a selected comparative list of acid hydrolysis can be included. […]