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. […]
CANUE Scientific Director Dr. Jeff Brook presented at TEDxUofT: Momentum to discuss how making cities more sustainable can bring public health benefits. He also showed a sneak peek of a new tool that will enable Canadians to see how well their built environment supports their health. View his TEDx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDOklHvbdmQ
Professor Gisele Azimi (ChemE, MSE) and her Laboratory for Strategic Materials are exploring aluminum as an alternative to lithium and cobalt to develop more cost-effective, safe and reliable components for next-generation batteries. Renewable energy from intermittent sources — such as solar or wind power — requires reliable energy storage systems to hold excess energy and release […]
The Troost ILead Summer Fellowship brings together engaging student leaders who are driven to improve their club or organization, as well as themselves as leaders. The Summer Fellows support each in exploring and developing their leaderships skills through various workshops, discussions and hands-on work. This tight knit community also helps one another with addressing key challenges in […]
As Ontario continues its gradual easing of COVID-19 public health measures, continued vigilance is necessary for governments to manage the virus in the long-term. One important and cost-effective tool that can help track trends in community transmission, detect new variants of concern and improve the detection of the SARS-CoV-2 viral signals that are often weakened […]
One of the greatest challenges for clinicians during the COVID-19 pandemic has been understanding why some people infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus experience cytokine storms, while others do not. Using their novel organ-on-a-chip platform, a U of T Engineering research team has identified a molecule with the potential to combat one of the most severe […]
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 […]
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 […]
Water is a limited resource, and a very costly one. On March 22 we celebrate World Water Day, which reminds us to protect this valuable and diminishing reserve. The Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry at U of T strives to contribute to this vital mission and in 2021 hired two new faculty members […]
Pulp and paper production represents one of Canada’s most valuable industries in the natural resource sector. The pulp and paper industry has made significant progress in reducing water usage intensity over the past decades, but its water footprint is still much higher than other natural resource sectors. Further effort is needed to improve water use efficiency, […]