Sustainability

Computer & Electrical Engineering

NSERC

Entrepreneurship Hatchery

Subheadline

The Sustainable Data Systems for Data Science initiative aims to align Canada’s tech investments with its vision for a carbon-neutral future

The growing global adoption of artificial intelligence technologies, including machine learning, has created a new sustainability challenge: AI systems are energy-intensive – and the more sophisticated they become, the more resources they require.

To help address the issue, a team of experts including the University of Toronto’s Hans-Arno Jacobsen and Natalie Enright Jerger – both professors in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering at the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering – are launching an initiative that aims to align Canada’s tech investments with its vision for a sustainable, carbon-neutral future.

The Sustainable Data Systems for Data Science (SDSDS) project aims to train a new generation of computer and data scientists who can combine comprehensive technical skills with sustainability awareness. The project recently received a $1.6-million Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) grant from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

“A majority of students are unaware of how sustainability informs responsible development of platforms and systems because, frankly, there just aren’t many courses or learning paths available to them in this area,” says Enright Jerger, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Computer Architecture and is director of the division of engineering science.

“Another crucial component of this project is to equip our students with knowledge transfer strategies so they can seed these ideas in the workforce. Today’s trainees becoming tomorrow’s trainers.”

The SDSDS team propose training future computer systems designers to adopt a green approach when developing data analytics platforms and systems. The approach would apply to all aspects of the life cycle of development and deployment – such as hardware infrastructure, software systems and application domains.

To advance knowledge and dialogue on the issue, SDSDS will look to hold cross-university seminars on sustainability challenges and will offer courses on sustainable data science, along with summer school programs focused on energy-efficient software and hardware platforms.

The researchers also aim to connect students with industry via internships and applied research projects, enabling them to gain exposure to current challenges and facilitate cross-pollination of knowledge between industry and academia.

“The awareness about AI’s environmental impact is growing, but there is an expertise gap on how to address this very real problem – not just after the fact, but at inception. SDSDS aims to bridge this gap and prepare for the future resource demands of AI-driven industries,” says Bettina Kemme, professor of computer science at McGill University and team lead at SDSDS, which also includes Semih Salihoğlu of the University of Waterloo, Oana Balmau of McGill University and Essam Mansour of Concordia University.

“The potential of AI and machine learning systems are seemingly limitless,” says Jacobsen, who is the Jeffrey Skoll Chair in Computer Networks and Innovation. “Yet the true genius lies in building machine learning systems founded on sustainability principles. That’s real innovation.”

3D-printed soil? ��ֱ�� startup expands sustainable urban farming footprint in Toronto

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 15:07:18 +0000

3D-printed soil? ��ֱ�� startup expands sustainable urban farming footprint in Toronto

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 09/11/2024 - 11:07

Cutline

Leo Hua and Adnan Sharif show off fresh basil that was grown with Lyrata’s sustainable farming system at Toronto’s Casa Loma (photo by Liz Intac)

Topic

Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Startups

��ֱ�� Scarborough

Subheadline

With new installations at Casa Loma and ��ֱ�� Scarborough, Lyrata is supplying freshly grown produce to local caterers and restaurants

A startup co-founded by a University of Toronto graduate student has its roots in an experience that is all too common for many of us.

He kept forgetting to water his plants.

“I was working in a plant immunity biology lab, so if I didn’t water them, I’d have no plants to do experiments with,” says Adnan Sharif, who is pursuing a master’s degree in the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

He says his solution was inspired by his father.

“My dad is a mechanical engineering professor at a university in Japan, and he knows a lot about manufacturing materials with porous, three-dimensional structures,” he says. “That’s how I got the idea to make my own 3D-printed soil construct, which could retain water for a week or more.

“That way, I wouldn’t have to go into the lab and water the plants so often.”

The innovation – which Sharif came up as an undergraduate working in the lab of Keiko Yoshioka, a professor in the department of cell and systems biology in ��ֱ��’s Faculty of Arts & Science – is one of several that now underpins Lyrata, a startup that grows fresh produce for caterers and high-end restaurants across the Greater Toronto Area.

The company, which got its start in a greenhouse on ��ֱ��’s St. George campus, has recently expanded with operations at ��ֱ�� Scarborough and Casa Loma, a museum, event space and historic site in midtown Toronto.

Growing plants without soil, known as hydroponics, is a technique commonly used in greenhouses worldwide. But Sharif and his team see an opportunity to make the industry more sustainable, starting with the soil replacement that the plants grow in.

“The product that almost everyone uses today is basically the same as house insulation,” Sharif says. “It’s made from rocks that are mined in remote places and shipped hundreds of kilometres to a production facility, where they are heated to thousands of degrees in a giant furnace to make a porous, chemically inert material. This material then needs to be shipped again to where it’s needed, and when you’re finished, you throw it in the garbage.”

By contrast, Lyrata’s SmartSoil is 3D-printed using biopolymers such as polylactic acid, which is derived from corn. These materials can be locally sourced and require much lower temperatures to melt and form into porous structures.

When the growing cycle is complete, the product goes through a low-heat proprietary cleaning process and can be used again. Sharif says that SmartSoil has a total lifespan of about two years, after which it can be composted along with crop residue. Together, these changes greatly lower the carbon footprint of indoor farming.

In 2020, Sharif and his co-founders brought his idea to The Entrepreneurship Hatchery, ��ֱ�� Engineering’s startup incubator and one of several entrepreneurship hubs across ��ֱ��’s three campuses. Through the Hatchery’s Nest process, they were connected with business mentors, including alumnus Xavier Tang, a consultant and venture capitalist who still advises the company today.

Over the next few years, the team evolved, with some original members leaving and others joining. They include Leo Hua, who has been pivotal to speeding the development of 3D printable soil. The concept evolved, too, as the team realized that producing food was a better business for Lyrata than rather than selling their growth medium to other farmers.

The Hatchery team – in particular, Executive Director Joseph Orozco, Go-To-Market Lead Erika J. Murray and a team of work-study students, mentors and legal externs – helped Lyrata develop their technology and business. In 2022, the Hatchery provided $155,000 in seed funding, enabling the founders to be employed by their company and further supporting business development. The funding also enabled the company to rent greenhouse space on campus, where they began growing lettuce to provide to Spaces and Experiences at ��ֱ��.

Lyrata also developed something new: a modular unit that works exclusively with their SmartSoil and contains everything required to produce a variety of indoor crops – from lights and growth medium to irrigation systems.

“None of these technological and business developments would have taken place without the generous support of the over 50 Hatchery mentors, work-study students, and legal externs who contributed to our success,” says Sharif.

“Our current concept is what we call farming-as-a-service,” Hua adds. “The SmartGrow unit we developed is small enough to fit into a standard parking spot. Our clients sign a contract with us to place a unit on their site and we take care of everything from planting to harvesting.

“For a flat fee, they get a self-contained farm that provides a reliable quantity of their desired crop over a set period of time.”

In addition to providing a locally sourced, sustainable product, Sharif says the approach can also help mitigate fluctuations in the price of wholesale produce.

“In Canada, most of our lettuce comes from California, which has been dealing with drought and many other issues,” says Sharif. “Supply chain disruptions due to COVID-19 were also a big challenge for restaurants, which have very thin margins to begin with. At one point, the price of lettuce increased by a factor of six, so you can imagine the effect that would have.”

So far, Lyrata has produced more than 15 different types of crops, including basil, parsley and mizuna, also known as Japanese mustard greens.

Support from the ��ֱ�� Engineering community has been key to Lyrata’s success.

For example, it was a ��ֱ�� Engineering alumni connection that recently led to Lyrata launching an installation at the historic Casa Loma museum and landmark in Toronto.

“Lyrata’s competitive edge is that they provide an on-site, full service and they do not take up very much space,” says Nikol Watlikiewicz, Casa Loma’s horticulture and grounds manager. “In a small corner of our potting shed, we were able to build two grow units that provide a good yield weekly, without having to train our staff on the complicated system.

“Growing indoors gives us the stability and control that traditional agriculture does not. It’s an excellent example of how engineers can help solve the global food crisis with innovative thinking.”

In August, Lyrata launched another growing unit at ��ֱ�� Scarborough, located within the Harmony Commons Dining Hall.

The priority for the next few years is growing Lyrata’s crop offerings and client base with ongoing support from The Hatchery. The incubator has facilitated graduate student placements through Mitacs, with matching funds. It also backed a recent $167,500 project with the Ontario and Canadian governments through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership program to further advance the yield and efficiency of the SmartSoil system.

“The fact we’ve been able to come this far in such a short time is in large part due to the help we’ve had from ��ֱ�� Engineering, and especially the Entrepreneurship Hatchery,” says Sharif.

“Whether it was getting seed funding, finding mentors, hiring work-study students or making important connections through their alumni network, we wouldn’t be here without their support.”

'Helping the people I grew up with': ��ֱ�� undergrad returns home with a passion for sustainability

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 05 Sep 2024 15:56:08 +0000

'Helping the people I grew up with': ��ֱ�� undergrad returns home with a passion for sustainability

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 09/05/2024 - 11:56

Cutline

Connor Isaac, a third-year mechanical engineering student, says he hopes to bring awareness of new, sustainable technologies to the community where he grew up (photo by Tristan McGuirk)

Tristan McGuirk

Topic

Mechanical & Industrial Engineering

Undergraduate Students

Subheadline

Connor Isaac is embarking on a year-long work experience term with Walpole Island First Nation, where he will be focused on the community's renewable energy future

Growing up on Walpole Island First Nation, Connor Isaac experienced a creative impulse from an early age – a trait that ultimately led him to the University of Toronto where he's exploring sustainability solutions.

“I would take apart electronics, I would play with Legos, play puzzle games, different things like that – it kind of fostered this creative mindset,” he says of his childhood.

“My teacher recommended that I look into engineering, and I thought, ‘You know what? That’s not a bad idea.’”

Now a third-year mechanical engineering student in ��ֱ��’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, Isaac says he is preparing to give back to the community where he got his start.

He is embarking on a 12-month role working alongside Chief and Council on Walpole Island First Nation as part of the Professional Experience Year Co-op Program (PEY Co-op). As ��ֱ�� Engineering’s flagship work-experience program, the co-op allows students to graduate with up to 20 months of meaningful work experience while earning a competitive salary and gaining professional skills in industry.

“I started working with Chief and Council last summer, sitting in their meetings and just kind of assessing projects on the island. I told them that I would be completing a PEY Co-op work term, and they said it would be great if I could come back,” Isaac says.

“This time my work is going to be more focused on Walpole Island First Nation’s renewable energy future. Since it’s a whole year, I’m hoping that it gives me a good idea of what it’s like working in industry.”

Isaac, who is Chippewa (Ojibwe) and Potawatom, and was raised between Walpole Island First Nation and the nearby town of Wallaceburg, Ont., says one of his biggest motivators for returning to Walpole Island is the chance to bring awareness of new, sustainable technologies to the community.

“I’m looking forward to helping the people living on Walpole Island First Nation understand what technology we’re using, because there’s a big disconnect,” he says. “I want to help inform the community about the various things that the Council is doing that will help them.”

Isaac’s commitment to sustainability goes beyond his PEY Co-op. He’s also involved in undergraduate research with David Sinton, a professor of mechanical and industrial engineering, and his team.

“I have been working with Professor Sinton on CO2 to ethanol research, which is a carbon capture clean technology where we capture CO2 from the air to be run through an electrolyzer. This will allow us to generate ethanol and other useful carbon-based products,” Isaac says.

He is also working alongside Tracy Galloway, an associate professor of anthropology at ��ֱ�� Mississauga, as a research assistant on the CANSTOREnergy project, a ��ֱ��-led collaboration that includes researchers from 11 Canadian universities. The team is developing clean energy technologies tailored to the needs of communities in the Yukon.

“Professor Sinton told me about the CANSTOREnergy project, and I mentioned that I have worked with my reserve during the summer, communicating similar ideas to the Chief and Council, but not so much to the community,” he says.

In the past, researchers have come into Indigenous communities to conduct studies without consulting the people affected, adds Isaac.

“We’re trying to avoid that.”

Upon graduation, Isaac hopes to pursue graduate studies.

“I am heavily considering a master’s degree, but I’m not too sure in which area. I don’t want to plan too far ahead because sometimes life gets in the way,” he says.

“My focus right now is helping the people that I grew up with and giving back to the community that raised me.”

��ֱ�� Engineering student team wins international prize with sustainable wind turbine

rahul.kalvapalle — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 13:44:46 +0000

��ֱ�� Engineering student team wins international prize with sustainable wind turbine

rahul.kalvapalle Tue, 08/06/2024 - 09:44

Cutline

From left to right: UTWind team members Robert Zhao, Joeun Yook, Micheal Jing, Dhara Patel, Alexis Terefenko, Justin Ding, Andre Li and Alex Chen (photo by Niels Adema)

Tyler Irving

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Research and Innovation

Undergraduate Students

Subheadline

It’s the UTWind team’s second victory at the International Small Wind Turbine Contest, following their win in 2022

A team of students from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering have earned top spot in the International Small Wind Turbine Contest with a design that utilized components from recycled pop bottles and plant-fibre composites.

The competition, which is hosted annually at Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen in the Netherlands, challenges student teams to design and build a small-scale wind turbine for deployment in sub-Saharan Africa. Teams are evaluated on the overall energy yield of their turbine, the sustainability of their design, the quality of their construction and the presentation they give to the judges.

The UTWind team's first-place finish saw them outcompete seven other teams from countries including Denmark, Poland, the Netherlands and Spain. This is the second time the team won the contest, following their debut performance in 2022.

Justin Ding, a second-year mechanical engineering student and incoming co-lead of UTWind's mechanical and manufacturing team, says the team made improvements to the pitch system for this year’s design and implemented more sustainable materials.

“For example, we used plant-based flax fibre composites to make the blades, which makes them lighter. The nose cone was made from recycled polyethylene terephthalate, or PET plastic, which is more sustainable than using new material,” Ding says.

“We gathered plastic pop bottles from around campus, including the student-run Hard Hat Café,” says third-year mechanical engineering student Elena Sloan, the other co-lead of the mechanical and manufacturing team. “We then cut these bottles into strips and extruded them through a heated nozzle to make 1.75 mm diameter filament, which we could use in our 3D printer.”

Once the turbine was complete, it was disassembled and packed into four bags of checked luggage for the flight to the Netherlands. The team’s first stop was Delft, where their turbine underwent testing in a wind tunnel at Delft University of Technology’s Open Jet Facility.

The testing showed that the team was able to harvest about 36 per cent of the available energy at a wind speed of 8.5 metres per second, a solid, but not outstanding result.

From there, the team members took a three-hour train ride across the country to Groningen, where they gave their technical presentation, followed by the awards ceremony.

“We didn’t really expect to win best overall, but we thought we had a decent chance at winning for the most sustainable design,” says Dhara Patel, incoming co-president of UTWind and a second-year electrical engineering student.

“When we found out we didn’t win that award, we were pretty devastated, but it was a complete shock to then find out that we won the whole competition – our mouths just hung open for a while.”

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A post shared by UTWind (@utwindclub)

Going forward, Patel says the team would like to try building a vertical-axis turbine in addition to their standard horizontal-axis version. “Vertical-axis turbines look really cool, and they are structurally simpler and have a lower profile than horizontal-axis ones,” she says.

“Only one other team has tried that. We’d like to take on that challenge, and ultimately put one on our own campus buildings to generate clean wind power.”

Patel was a high school student when UTWind won their first competition in 2022, and says reading about their success was one of the things that inspired her to study engineering at ��ֱ��. The team she eventually came to co-lead now includes more than 50 engineering students as well as some from the Faculty of Arts & Science.

Students are divided into five sub-teams: aerodynamics, mechanical and manufacturing, control systems, power systems and sustainability.

The team members say they’re energized by their win, and have big plans for next year.

“We’ve learned so many lessons – before, during and after the contest,” says Robert Zhao, UTWind's other incoming co-president and an undergraduate student in the department of physics.

“But our competitors have also learned those lessons, and there are more of them than ever before. We need to improve our winning design, making it more robust and more mature to better defend our title.”

��ֱ�� researchers develop foam filter system to mop up oil spills faster

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 18:11:38 +0000

��ֱ�� researchers develop foam filter system to mop up oil spills faster

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 08/01/2024 - 14:11

Cutline

Associate Professor Amy Bilton, left, and fellow team members Calvin Rieder, Puwaner Gou, Nitish Sarker, along with Jordan Bouchard (not pictured), show off a prototype of their polymer foam filter technology (photo courtesy of Monisha Naik)

Selah Katona

Topic

Subheadline

The team, which has advanced to the final stage of a national competition, is testing a polymer foam filter system that would allow oil spill response vessels to treat contaminated water on board

A research team from the University of Toronto has advanced to the final stage of a national competition that seeks to develop better ways to protect Canada from the devastating effects of oil spills.

The team, led by Amy Bilton, an associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, has been awarded $1.3 million via Natural Resources Canada’s (NRCan) Oil Spill Response Challenge to develop and test a system that treats contaminated water onboard oil spill response ships.

Called FRODO, the prototype allows for treatment of contaminated water stored in response vessels through an engineered polymer foam filter – not unlike a kitchen sponge – that allows water to pass while syphoning off the small oil particles. The filter and treatment system would allow the ship to release previously contaminated water back into the environment. That, in turn, means more oil can be collected in less time.

A FRODO prototype unit showing the canisters that hold the foam filter that allows water to pass through (photo courtesy of Amy Bilton)

By contrast, current approaches involve response vessels gathering oil with large, floating barriers before using a skimmer to suck oil and water into their holds. The ships must then offload the entire load – about 25 per cent oil and 75 per cent water with small trace amounts of oil – to a land-based facility for treatment.

“We’re both engineering the foam material and developing the treatment process to fill in a gap in current oil spill operations,” says Bilton. “We aim to increase the amount of oil these vessels can collect by a factor of four.”

More than four million barrels of oil are transported through Canada daily. With more than 240,000 kilometres of coastline and more than 890,000 kilometres of freshwater systems across the country, effective oil spill response is critical in protecting diverse ecosystems and communities. Through the Oil Spill Response Challenge, the Government of Canada is investing $10 million in the development of innovative and rapidly deployable solutions to oil spill detection, response and recovery in Canada’s aquatic environments.

Assessing the environmental impact is another key area of research for the Bilton team. Canada has a zero-discharge policy, meaning no oil can be present in water when discharging it back into our water systems. These regulations vary by country. Norway, for example, requires the amount of oil in the discharge to be less than 15 parts per million. Bilton and her team are running a parallel project funded through NRCan’s Multi-partner Research Initiative to understand the environmental impact and considerations of implementing this in-situ treatment process.

Bilton’s team is one of the five finalists moving on to Stage 3 of the competition, with the winner set to be announced in winter of 2025. At this stage, the team has one year to accelerate, scale and test their prototype in preparation for commercialization.

“We are in the testing phase now and are planning large-scale simulations at our Ohmsett partner facility in New Jersey,” says Bilton.

The team is partnering with Western and Eastern Coast Marine Response Corporations, VPC Group and Urethane Sciences to ensure their system is scalable and can be manufactured. The current prototype is significantly smaller – around one metre in size – than what the final system will be. Ensuring the engineered polymer foam and other materials can be manufactured and meet strict requirements are top of mind at this stage of the challenge.

“Our goal is that this system can be deployed quickly and effectively to improve oil spill response across Canada, and potentially in other parts of the world,” says Bilton.

The research team that wins the final stage will receive an additional $2 million in funding to commercialize their technology.

More with less: Researchers map a more sustainable path to home construction in Canada

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 18:16:30 +0000

More with less: Researchers map a more sustainable path to home construction in Canada

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 07/31/2024 - 14:16

Cutline

(photo by Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Tyler Irving

Topic

Cities

Graduate Students

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

Subheadline

From more multi-unit projects to fewer basements, a computer simulation shows that multiple building strategies will be necessary to address the country's housing affordability while meeting climate targets

Adopting the right mix of sustainable construction practices could allow Canada to meet its housing goals – as many as 5.8 million new homes by 2030 – without blowing past its climate commitments.

Researchers in the University of Toronto’s Centre for the Sustainable Built Environment (CSBE) developed a computer simulation that forecasts the emissions associated with new housing and infrastructure construction.

The work builds on previous CSBE research that showed that, in order for Canada to meet its greenhouse gas emissions targets, homes built in 2030 will need to produce 83 per cent fewer greenhouse gases during construction than those built in 2018.

“There is an obvious tension between our commitment to reducing our emissions and the need to restore housing affordability,” says Shoshanna Saxe, an associate professor of civil and mineral engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering who is the CSBE’s director.

“But that tension only exists because of our status quo approaches to housing. As our research shows, we can build 5.8 million homes and cut GHG emissions from construction – it’s just that we must build them differently than we have in the past.”

In their latest paper, the CSBE team built what they call the future infrastructure growth (FIG) model, which enabled the team to evaluate the effect of implementing various strategies that aim to lower these emissions.

“We built our model using open data from the roughly 50,000 neighbourhoods we currently have in Canada,” says Keagan Rankin, a PhD student who is first author of the new paper published in Environmental Science & Technology.

“We looked at aspects such as how many units there are per neighbourhood, what type of housing stock comprises them, what length of road services them, etc. We then used what we know about current construction methods to model what the embodied emissions would be if you built a given number of new homes in the future, using the same distribution of neighbourhood types.

“Once we had that, we were able to ask the question: how much could we reduce those emissions by adopting sustainable construction strategies, such as denser neighbourhoods or better building design?”

The team looked at five strategies that could be implemented to reduce emissions associated with housing construction:

Urban form: Analysis of existing neighbourhoods showed that emissions per unit are lower for those that contain more multi-unit buildings (either high-rise or low-rise) than they are for those that consist mostly of suburban, single-family homes. This strategy would involve a shift toward more of these multi-unit neighbourhood forms.
Higher infill rate: This refers to placing new housing in existing neighbourhoods – areas that are already built up. Because it reuses existing infrastructure, such as roads and water pipes, this new housing can be built with lower emissions than greenfield developments.
Circularity: This strategy involves re-using existing buildings or infrastructure in the construction of new ones. For example, renovating a single-family home to become a multi-unit dwelling would require fewer materials than razing it and starting from scratch.
Material technology improvements: Innovations in the way that materials such as concrete or steel are manufactured can reduce their carbon footprint. This strategy assumed that by 2030, our main construction materials will be produced with 20 to 25 per cent fewer emissions than today.
Best-in-class design: The team found that some housing designs were associated with lower emissions per unit, such as making the home smaller overall through better layouts. Another example involves the proportion of residential building that is underground. Since basements are typically made of carbon-intensive concrete, the same sized dwelling with a smaller basement would have lower emissions.

Multiple strategies will be required

Using the FIG model, the researchers showed that building housing at the rate required to restore affordability without any changes to construction practices would cause Canada to overshoot its climate commitments by 437 per cent.

However, if the above strategies are implemented, the FIG model suggests that they would in fact be able to reduce emissions to below the target level.

The model also showed that while all five strategies are needed to reach the target, some of them had a stronger effect than others. For example, changing urban forms and using best-in-class design together accounted for roughly two-thirds of the improvements needed. By contrast, the strategies of infill, circularity and improvements in manufacturing each accounted for roughly one-tenth of the changes needed.

The researchers found that for the next one to two decades, the most important elements of sustainable building will be designing better buildings and building denser neighbourhoods.

“The numbers are very close, and of course there’s a certain amount of uncertainty associated with all of these estimates, but it was good to see that we came in below the line, because it means the situation is not completely hopeless,” says Rankin.

“There’s no question that building 5.8 million homes by 2030 is an aggressive target. We may not get there, and if not, it would of course make it a bit easier to stay within our carbon budget.

“But we’ve done ambitious things as a country before, such as building a railroad from coast to coast in just five years. This analysis shows that the strategies we already know about are sound, and that all of them will be needed if we are going to prevent the worst impacts of climate change while also restoring housing affordability.”

��ֱ��’s Grid Modernization Centre receives $10 million in federal funding to advance energy transition

rahul.kalvapalle — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 14:52:38 +0000

��ֱ��’s Grid Modernization Centre receives $10 million in federal funding to advance energy transition

rahul.kalvapalle Mon, 07/29/2024 - 10:52

Cutline

(Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)

Sayyeda Masood

Topic

City & Culture

Climate Positive Energy

Leah Cowen

Electrical & Computer Engineering

Subheadline

Founded by the Climate Positive Energy institutional strategic initiative, the Grid Modernization Centre will help accelerate integration of novel green technologies

The University of Toronto has received $10-million in federal funding in support of the Grid Modernization Centre, a state-of-the-art facility in Toronto’s Downsview area that aims to accelerate progress towards a decarbonized, decentralized and digitalized power system for Canada.

Founded by Climate Positive Energy, a ��ֱ�� institutional strategic initiative, the centre will serve as a hub that provides utilities, regulators, municipalities and enterprises with the equipment and expertise needed to test, develop and commercialize a range of green technologies.

The Government of Canada announced the investment – which includes $5 million apiece from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) and Natural Resources Canada – at ��ֱ��'s Myhal Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship on Friday, July 26.

“On behalf of the University of Toronto, we thank FedDev Ontario and Natural Resources Canada for their $10-million investment in the Grid Modernization Centre,” said Leah Cowen, ��ֱ��’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives. “By convening stakeholders across the electricity ecosystem, Climate Positive Energy and their partners will help ensure the electrical grid remains safe and reliable, while supporting the development of clean technologies and jobs.”

Leah Cowen (left), ��ֱ��'s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives, was joined by Ya'ara Saks (centre), minister of mental health and addictions, and Julie Dabrusin (right), parliamentary secretary to the minister of the environment, at the $10-million funding announcement for ��ֱ��'s Grid Modernization Centre (photo by Liz Beddall)

The first facility of its kind in Canada, the Grid Modernization Centre will foster innovations pertinent to electricity demand, which is estimated to double in the next 30 years according to Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator.

“Through initiatives such as the Grid Modernization Centre here at ��ֱ��, we are collaborating to unlock a brighter future for our energy systems on the path to net-zero,” said Julie Dabrusin, parliamentary secretary to the minister for environment and climate change and the minister of energy and natural resources.

“By supporting advancements in clean energy technologies, we are not only protecting our environment but also positioning Canada at the forefront of the clean energy revolution,” said Ya’ara Saks, minister of mental health and addictions and MP for York Centre, who attended the announcement on behalf of Filomena Tassi, the minister responsible for FedDev Ontario.

Ya'ara Saks and Julie Dabrusin speak with Associate Professor Ali Hooshyar during a tour of the Centre for Applied Power Electronics (photo by Liz Beddall)

Ontario’s existing grid faces a number of challenges, including extreme weather events, the increasing popularity of electric vehicles and concerns around capacity, reliability, and security.

To address these challenges, the Grid Modernization Centre will enable an array of green technologies – from electric vehicle charging stations to battery energy storage systems – to be tested and refined before they are integrated with the grid.

It will also provide training opportunities for students and thought leadership on policy, regulatory and climate financing models.

Prior to Friday’s announcement, MP Saks and Parliamentary Secretary Dabrusin enjoyed a tour of the Centre for Applied Power Electronics led by Ali Hooshyar, associate professor and Canada Research Chair in Electric Power Systems in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. The centre specializes in research and development around electric power systems in areas such as integration of renewable resources into power grids and energy storage and distribution in microgrids.

(L-R) Chris Yip, dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, and Deepa Kundur, chair of the Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering, said the Grid Modernization Centre will help address crucial challenges around sustainable energy (photo by Liz Beddall)

Professor and chair of the department Deepa Kundur hailed the Grid Modernization Centre as a “crucial step” toward a safer and more sustainable society. "At ECE, we actively contribute to the technological landscape by addressing challenges in vehicle electrification, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity. This new centre represents ��ֱ��'s proactive response to society's energy needs, and I'm thrilled about its potential impact,” Kundur said.

Professor Christopher Yip, dean of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, described the clean energy transition as arguably the most important shift facing companies and communities today. “��ֱ�� has responded to this challenge by developing the Grid Modernization Centre," Yip said.

"Today’s investment is key in supporting the centre and propelling us towards a reliable, resilient and sustainable electricity grid that will power a clean energy future for generations.”

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��ֱ�� researchers design new method of recycling steel that could reduce industry's carbon footprint

rahul.kalvapalle — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 16:09:57 +0000

��ֱ�� researchers design new method of recycling steel that could reduce industry's carbon footprint

rahul.kalvapalle Fri, 07/26/2024 - 12:09

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PhD candidate Jaesuk Paeng (left) and Professor Gisele Azimi from the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry in ��ֱ��'s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering display an electrochemical cell that's vital to their novel steel-recycling method (photo by Safa Jinje)

Safa Jinje

Topic

Chemical Engineering

Materials Science

Subheadline

“Our study is the first reported instance of electrochemically removing copper from steel and reducing impurities to below alloy level”

Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering have designed a novel way to recycle steel that could help decarbonize several manufacturing industries and usher in a circular steel economy.

The new method introduces an innovative oxysulfide electrolyte for electrorefining, an alternative way of removing copper and carbon impurities from molten steel. The process also generates liquid iron and sulfur as by-products.

It’s outlined in a new paper published in Resources, Conservation and Recycling and co-authored by Jaesuk (Jay) Paeng, a PhD candidate in the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry, William Judge, a PhD alum from the department of materials science and engineering, and Professor Gisele Azimi from the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry.

“Our study is the first reported instance of electrochemically removing copper from steel and reducing impurities to below alloy level,” says Azimi, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Urban Mining Innovations.

Currently, only 25 per cent of steel produced comes from recycled material. But the global demand for greener steel is projected to grow over the next two decades as governments around the world endeavour to achieve net-zero emission goals.

Steel is created by reacting iron ore with coke – a prepared form of coal – as the source of carbon and blowing oxygen through the metal produced. Current processes generate nearly two tonnes of carbon dioxide per tonne of steel produced, making steel production one of the highest contributors to carbon emissions in the manufacturing sector.

Traditional steel recycling methods use an electric arc furnace to melt down scrap metal. Since it is difficult to physically separate copper material from scrap before melting, the element is also present in the recycled steel products.

“The main problem with secondary steel production is that the scrap being recycled may be contaminated with other elements, including copper,” says Azimi.

“The concentration of copper adds up as you add more scrap metals to be recycled, and when it goes above 0.1 weight percentage in the final steel product, it will be detrimental to the properties of steel.”

Copper cannot be removed from molten steel scrap using the traditional electric arc furnace steelmaking practice, so this limits the secondary steel market to producing lower-quality steel product, such as reinforcing bars used in the construction industry.

“Our method can expand the secondary steel market into different industries,” says Paeng. “It has the potential to be used to create higher-grade products such as galvanized cold rolled coil used in the automotive sector, or steel sheets for deep drawing used in the transport sector.”

To remove copper from iron to below 0.1 weight percentage, the team had to first design an electrochemical cell that could withstand temperatures up to 1,600 degrees Celsius.

Inside the cell, electricity flows between the negative electrode (cathode) and positive electrode (anode) through a novel oxysulfide electrolyte designed from slag — a waste derived from steelmaking that often ends up in cement or landfills.

“We put our contaminated iron that has the copper impurity as the anode of the electrochemical cell,” says Azimi. “We then apply an electromotive force, which is the voltage, with a power supply and we force the copper to react with the electrolyte.”

“The electrolyte targets the removal of copper from the iron when we apply electricity to the cell,” adds Paeng. “When we apply electricity on the one side of the cell, we force the copper to react with the electrolyte and come out from iron. At the other end of the cell, we simultaneously produce new iron.”

Azimi’s lab collaborated on the research with Tenova Goodfellow Inc., a global supplier of advanced technologies, products and services for metal and mining industries, where study co-author Judge works as a senior research and development engineer.

Looking forward, the team wants to enable the electro-refining process to remove other contaminants from steel, including tin.

“Iron and steel are the most widely used metals in the industry, and I think the production rate is as high as 1.9 billion tonnes per year,” says Azimi.

“Our method has great potential to offer the steelmaking industry a practical and easily implementable way to recycle steel to produce more of the demand for high-grade steel globally.” 

New contaminant-tolerant catalyst could help capture carbon directly from smokestacks

rahul.kalvapalle — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 16:45:48 +0000

New contaminant-tolerant catalyst could help capture carbon directly from smokestacks

rahul.kalvapalle Wed, 07/24/2024 - 12:45

Cutline

PhD students Rui Kai (Ray) Miao (left) and Panos Papangelakis (right) hold up a new catalyst that is designed to convert captured CO2 gas into valuable products (photo by Tyler Irving)

Tyler Irving

Topic

David Sinton

Mechanical & Industrial Engineering

Subheadline

The research marks an important step towards developing economically viable techniques for carbon capture and storage

Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering have designed a catalyst that can efficiently convert captured carbon into valuable products – even in the presence of contaminants that degrade the performance of current versions.

The discovery, described in a paper published in Nature Energy, is an important step toward more economically viable techniques for carbon capture and storage that could be added to existing industrial processes.

“Today, we have more and better options for low-carbon electricity generation than ever before,” says David Sinton, professor in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering and senior author on the paper. “But there are other sectors of the economy that will be harder to decarbonize: for example, steel and cement manufacturing. To help those industries, we need to invent cost-effective ways to capture and upgrade the carbon in their waste streams.”

Sinton and his team use devices known as electrolyzers to convert CO2 and electricity into products such as ethylene and ethanol. These carbon-based molecules can be sold as fuels or used as chemical feedstocks for making everyday items such as plastic.

Inside the electrolyzer, the conversion reaction happens when three elements — CO2 gas, electrons and a water-based liquid electrolyte — come together on the surface of a solid catalyst.

The catalyst is often made of copper but may also contain other metals or organic compounds that can further improve the system. Its function is to speed up the reaction and minimize the creation of undesirable byproducts like hydrogen gas, which reduce the efficiency of the overall process.

While several high-performing catalysts have been developed around the world, nearly all of them are designed to operate with a pure CO2 feed. But if the carbon in question comes from smokestacks, the feed is likely to be anything but pure.

“Catalyst designers generally don’t like dealing with impurities, and for good reason,” says Panos Papangelakis, a PhD student in mechanical engineering and a co-lead author on the paper.

“Sulphur oxides such as SO2 poison the catalyst by binding to the surface. This leaves fewer sites for CO2 to react, and it also causes the formation of chemicals you don’t want.

“It happens really fast: whereas some catalysts can last hundreds of hours on a pure feed, if you introduce these impurities, within minutes they can be down to five per cent efficiency.”

Although there are well-established methods to remove impurities from CO2-rich exhaust gases before feeding them into the electrolyzer, these require substantial time, energy and expense. Furthermore, in the case of SO2, even a little bit can be a big problem.

“Even if you bring your exhaust gas down to less than 10 parts per million, or 0.001 per cent of the feed, the catalyst can still be poisoned in under two hours,” says Papangelakis.

In the paper, the team describes how two key changes to a typical copper-based catalyst can make it more resilient to SO2.

On one side, they added a thin layer of polyteterafluoroethylene, also known as Teflon. This non-stick material changes the chemistry at the catalyst surface, impeding the reactions that enable SO2 poisoning to take place.

On the other side, they added a layer of Nafion, an electrically conductive polymer often used in fuel cells. This complex, porous material contains some areas that are hydrophilic, meaning they attract water, as well as other areas that are hydrophobic, meaning they repel water. This structure makes it difficult for SO2 to reach the catalyst surface.

The team then fed this catalyst with a mix of CO2 and SO2, with the latter at a concentration of about 400 parts per million, typical of an industrial waste stream. Even under these tough conditions, the new catalyst performed well.

“In the paper, we report a Faraday efficiency — a measure of how many of the electrons ended up in the desired products — of 50 per cent, which we were able to maintain for 150 hours,” says Papangelakis.

“There are some catalysts out there that might start at a higher efficiency, maybe 75 per cent or 80 per cent. But again, if you expose them to SO2, within minutes or at most a couple of hours, that drops down to almost nothing. We were able to resist that.”

Papangelakis says that because his team’s approach doesn’t affect the composition of the catalyst itself, it should be widely applicable. In other words, teams that have already perfected high-performing catalysts should be able to use similar coatings to confer resistance to sulphur oxide poisoning.

Although sulphur oxides are the most challenging impurity in typical waste streams, they are not the only ones, and it’s the full set of chemical contaminants that the team is turning to next.

“There are lots of other impurities to consider, such as nitrogen oxides, oxygen, etc.,” says Papangelakis.

“But the fact that this approach works so well for sulphur oxides is very promising. Before this work, it was just taken for granted that you’d have to remove the impurities before upgrading CO2.

“What we’ve shown is that there might be a different way to deal with them, which opens up a lot of new possibilities.”

Emotions play a key role in shaping people’s views on renewable energy: Study

rahul.kalvapalle — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 14:26:08 +0000

Emotions play a key role in shaping people’s views on renewable energy: Study

rahul.kalvapalle Tue, 07/23/2024 - 10:26

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The influence of emotions on people's perceptions of energy issues was explored in a meta-analysis study led by Steve Lorteau, doctoral candidate at ��ֱ��'s Faculty of Law (photo by Daniel Vogl/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Nina Haikara

Topic

Faculty of Law