Grad News

Innovative research on understanding stress relaxation behaviour

May 4, 2022

Short glass and carbon fibres are added to polymers, such as epoxy, to provide stiffness and strength. As the fibres are elastic, they behave like metal springs, but the polymers are viscoelastic, meaning that they undergo creep and stress relaxation. When elastic fibres are added to viscoelastic polymers, the fibres seem to strangely alter the […]

Recovering a crucial and non-renewable resource from wastewater

April 26, 2022

Phosphorous (P) is a critical component of biological processes. Yet, its over-enrichment in water bodies, known as eutrophication, can have detrimental effects on aquatic ecosystems. As a non-renewable resource with no known alternatives, it is important to recover P from wastewater. Sara Abu-Obaid (PhD candidate), supervised by Professor Ramin Farnood and Adjunct Professor Shahram Tabe, […]

Improving the energy efficiency of pulp and paper mills

April 12, 2022

Pulp and paper mills are often plagued with sodium salt scaling in their high solid evaporators. Research in the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry is looking to improve the energy efficiency of mills, and in the best case, reduce the potential downtime associated with the removal of scales through more intensive means. A […]

Investigating the fate of phosphorus in the chemical recovery cycle of kraft pulp mills

April 7, 2022

Maryam Mousavi (ChemE PhD student) supervised by Professor Niko DeMartini is working on the fate of phosphorus in the chemical recovery cycle of kraft pulp mills. As mills tighten water cycles and look to replace fossil fuel with biomass fuels, the buildup of non-process elements (NPEs), especially phosphorus, is a significant concern for the industry. […]

ChemE student research published in ACS ES&T Water

March 16, 2022

Microplastics are common pollutants that can be found everywhere: in the food we eat, in the air we breath, in the Sahara Desert, and in deep oceans. A common way to study microplastics is to collect water/soil/sediment samples in the environment and analyze them in the lab, but this method comes with complications. To quantify […]

Reducing water pollution through advances in microplastic research

March 16, 2022

Microplastic debris in major water systems has become a significant issue in recent years. Monitoring microplastic pollution and evaluating its health risks are largescale jobs. Bin Shi, a PhD student from the Department of Material Science & Engineering, strives to reduce these challenges through his project, Automatic quantification and classification of microplastics in scanning electron […]

ChemE Student Discovery Award winners

February 11, 2022

Four graduate students have received Student Discovery Awards. Established in 2013, this award is presented to students who have successfully defended their MASc or PhD thesis at a Departmental Oral Examination within 2 or 5 years of program start date respectively, and have authored/co-authored at least one first-authored paper per year in the program at […]

Sheida Stephens receives Engineers Canada Manulife Scholarship

October 28, 2021

Sheida Stephens (PhD Candidate) supervised by Professor Grant Allen is one of three recipients of the 2021 Engineers Canada Manulife Scholarship, which provides $12,500 to each recipient to further their study/research in an engineering field. Click here to explore the various ways this year’s recipients are strengthening their knowledge in the field.

Suraj Borkar’s work featured in Nature Communications

October 7, 2021

Substrate colonization by an emulsion drop prior to spreading, work by Suraj Borkar (ChemE PhD Candidate) and Professor Arun Ramchandran, was just published in Nature Communications: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26015-2. In classical wetting, the spreading of an emulsion drop on a surface is preceded by the formation of a bridge connecting the drop and the surface across the […]

Grad Shout Out: Patrick Diep Wins 3rd Place in MetSoc Paper Competition

August 19, 2021

Patrick Diep, a PhD Candidate supervised by Profs. Alexander Yakunin and Krishna Mahadevan, placed 3rd at the 60th Conference of Metallurgists which was virtually hosted by MetSoc from August 17-19. Currently, liquid mine effluents may contain dissolved metals at concentrations too low to be economically extracted by existing technologies, yet too high for environmental discharge. […]