Sustainability

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 �Թϱ��’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 �Թϱ�� 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 �Թϱ�� Mississauga, as a research assistant on the CANSTOREnergy project, a �Թϱ��-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.”

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

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

�Թϱ�� 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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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 �Թϱ��. 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.”

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

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

�Թϱ�� 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.”

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

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

�Թϱ��’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 �Թϱ�� 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 �Թϱ��'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, �Թϱ��’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), �Թϱ��'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 �Թϱ��'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 �Թϱ��, 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 �Թϱ��'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. “�Թϱ�� 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.”

Read the Climate Positive Energy story

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

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

�Թϱ�� 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 �Թϱ��'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 �Թϱ��'s Faculty of Law (photo by Daniel Vogl/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Nina Haikara

Topic

Faculty of Law

Subheadline

New research from �Թϱ��'s Faculty of Law examines the policy impact of climate concerns and worries

Concern and worry over climate change result in support for renewable energy but don’t necessarily translate into opposition to fossil fuels, according to a study led by Steve Lorteau, doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law.

Lorteau and researchers in psychology and sociology from the University of British Columbia, Université de Montréal, University of Ottawa and Université de Saint-Boniface set out to examine how emotions affect people’s perceptions of energy issues – and what implications this could have on shaping policies and communicating the impacts of climate change.

Their paper, published in Energy Policy, lays out the results of a meta-analysis on the link between climate concerns and worries and opinions about energy sources, based on data from over 85,000 participants in 36 countries. The studies asked questions such as, “Are you concerned about climate change?” or “Are you worried about climate change?” The studies also asked participants questions about how they view different energy sources, such as support for wind, oil and gas and nuclear.

“At first, we expected that if you are concerned about climate change, you would support renewable energy like wind and solar – and oppose coal, oil and gas to the same degree. But that’s not what we found,” says Lorteau. “We found that people with concerns and worries about climate change supported renewables, but also found these emotional responses only translate into a slight opposition to fossil fuels because people really like the status quo.

“Most people consider, ‘How am I going to gas my car if there are no fossil fuels? How am I going to heat my home?’”

As a result, policymakers need to consider how people view energy and climate policy questions, since emotional aspects will shape how they view change, Lorteau says, noting this point builds on Faculty of Law Professor Brenda Cossman’s earlier work on how climate anxiety can lead people away from the political process.

“In terms of a policy outcome, people don’t want to be inconvenienced,” Lorteau says. “They seem to think that we can solve climate change by just adding more renewables to the mix while keeping the same baseline of fossil fuels, which is not the consensus among climate scientists.”

The analysis also found that climate concerns and worries were not associated with support for – or opposition to – nuclear energy. This, Lorteau says, is due to the fact that support for nuclear energy tends to depend on context and how questions are worded. For example, the questions “Do you support zero-emissions nuclear energy?” and “Would you support a nuclear facility next door to you?” resulted in equal opposition and support.

“Some countries rely heavily on nuclear energy – France being an example – and in those countries, I think [there is] some acceptance that nuclear energy is part of the status quo versus memories of where nuclear energy goes wrong and so those concerns become more salient,” he says.

For his doctoral research, Lorteau is focused on zoning laws in Canada and the U.S. and how people are concerned about losing out on environmental policy change. He says zoning laws preserve and protect the status quo of property owners while not evaluating the potential gains that can happen in society, especially when it comes to environmental initiatives.

He notes the concept of winners and losers of policy decisions is a big theme of University Professor Emeritus Michael Trebilcock’s groundbreaking research, and an influence on his own. "If the policy losers are powerful enough, have a legitimate claim or feel aggrieved, change won’t happen,” Lorteau says.

“How do you bring environmentalism into a space that is so biased against it in big ways? You need to consider emotions, and the potential losers of a policy transition, to understand what their complaints are.”

�Թϱ�� researcher leads effort to protect power utilities from quantum attacks

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 23 May 2024 20:12:49 +0000

�Թϱ�� researcher leads effort to protect power utilities from quantum attacks

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 05/23/2024 - 16:12

Cutline

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering researcher Deepa Kundur, second from right, is leading a collaboration between academia and industry that’s focused on developing solutions to protect power utilities from cyberattacks using quantum technologies (photo by Neil Ta)

Matthew Tierney

Topic

Electrical & Computer Engineering

Quantum

Quantum Computing