There is a strong push toward producing fuel cells on a commercial scale. This means a greater focus on production speed and yields with a need to understand the unintended features that arise from larger-scale manufacturing processes. This project requires the set up of state-of-the-art, camera-vision, defect detection equipment to find and collect observed membrane features. These features will then be catalogued and tested to determine their impact on membrane durability and whether they affect later processing steps.

Hydrogen powered polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are a clean energy technology that generates electricity without harmful emissions at the point of use. Current R&D efforts mainly target to commercialize PEMFCs through cost reduction and durability enhancement. The lifetime of PEMFC is limited by the degradation and failure of the polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM). The proposed research project addresses the mechanical degradation mechanism, a key factor reducing the lifetime of PEMs, by developing in-house ex-situ mechanical durability evaluation tools.

The key objective of this research is to validate the methodology for measurement of off-gassing from storage of wood pellets as well as development of data on heat generation from wood pellets. Canada is one of the main producer and exporter of wood pellets. 90% of this production belongs to British Columbia. Thus development of ISO standards on off-gassing and self-heating of wood pellets are critical. The rate of off-gassing for a particular biomass traded as commercial products is required to be declared in the MSDS for the product.

Within a hydrogen fuel cell, the cathode catalyst layer (CCL) is generally considered a limiting component in overall performance due to sluggish oxygen reduction reaction kinetics. The proposed internship is comprised of two projects, each characterizing the materials used in the CCL.

Enhancing the current and power density in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) is one of the main challenges to their large-scale commercialization and hence in tune with the pending needs of the PEMFC industry. The volumetric power density in PEMFC stacks is strongly affected by the flow field plates due to their critical impact on the reactants distribution over the electrodes and their bulky size. In the proposed research, baffle-type parallel-channel cathode, anode and cooling flow field plates are designed with a small thickness.

Canada’s coastal regions are an excellent source of marine renewable energy. These regions are also popular with marine mammals, providing good feeding opportunities. However little is known about how marine mammals will be affected by tidal energy developments. Concerns include the impacts of sound on animals’ ability to find food and navigate, the indirect effects of changes in prey distribution and abundance, and the direct impacts of collision with tidal energy structures in the water column.

Hydrofaction™ is Steeper Energy’s proprietary hydrothermal liquefaction technology that converts low value biomass residues to renewable crude oil using supercritical water and homogeneous catalysis. Steeper Energy Canada (SEC) is focused on identifying optimal pathways for upgrading Hydrofaction™ Oil into renewable diesel and jet fuels. Amidst plummeting crude oil prices, such renewable fuels still command attractive ‘green’ economic premiums as well as policy support for their climate and rural development deliverables.

The Project’s objective is to continue the upgrading work executed in the previous MITACS Converge project with a larger focus on more challenging biocrude oils such as heavy fractions, high viscosity, high nitrogen, high ash oils that are produced from feedstocks such as “feed gate residues” in the form of manures, biosludges and organics from municipal waste. The performance objective remains to optimize and scale up the upgrading of Hydrofaction™ Oil to blendstocks for transport fuels.

The Project’s objective is to continue the upgrading work executed in the previous MITACS Converge project with a larger focus on more challenging biocrude oils such as heavy fractions, high viscosity, high nitrogen, high ash oils that are produced from feedstocks such as “feed gate residues” in the form of manures, biosludges and organics from municipal waste. The performance objective remains to optimize and scale up the upgrading of Hydrofaction™ Oil to blendstocks for transport fuels.

The Wind Energy Institute of Canada has installed a large-scale wind power and energy storage systems. The institute’s goal is to investigate the wind integration techniques and to increase understanding of the industry for energy storage systems. The objective of this project is to demonstrate and evaluate the capability of energy storage system for shifting wind energy over time and providing ancillary services. Multiple functions of energy storage systems can bring more value to them and justify their high capital costs.