CERT has developed a technology to convert carbon dioxide into chemicals using water and renewable electricity in a system called a CO2 electrolyzer. They are scaling up this technology as part of the Carbon XPRIZE competition, a global race to find new technologies to make valuable products from CO2.

Ekona Power Inc is developing a technology to convert natural gas into H2, electricity and a pure CO2 stream. The CO2 stream will them be removed using underground carbon sequestration. Their approach uses two processes. The first uses pyrolysis to convert natural gas to hydrogen and solid carbon. The second uses a fuel cell to convert the solid carbon to a pure CO2 stream. This proposal concerns the first process.
Ekona is currently finalizing the design of pyrolysis unit and preparing for the pilot scale testing.

Current quantum computers are in the “NISQ”, or Noisy-Intermediate-Scale-Quantum regime. The true potential of quantum computing will only be realized when noise levels are reduced or controlled, and large scale is achieved. Xanadu’s approach is to use photonic technology as the building blocks of their machines. This project addresses two related questions concerning the future development of these machines: A - In which conditions does a photonic quantum computer reach quantum advantage (demonstrating large speedups compared to today’s most powerful conventional computers)?

Herbal oils and oleoresins are components extracted from flowers, bark, leaves, roots, or fruits. These extracts are used as fragrances, flavoring agents, antimicrobials, and therapeutic agents with a market value of more than USD 8.5 billion and 7% annual growth. Steam and solvents are used to extract oils and oleoresins (respectively), but they have limited extraction efficiency, are energy-intensive, and emit greenhouse gases (GHG). Solvent extraction can also emit volatile organic components (VOCs) and produce flammable environments.

Canadian public and private researchers have taken an interest in a new class of light-emitting materials which can produce better colour in OLED smartphone and television screens. Currently, the only way to fully confirm that a specific material in this class has the desired properties is to build it into a prototype OLED pixel. This slows discovery, because researchers need to figure out how to make larger batches of a specific material just to confirm whether that material is useful.

ImmunoBiochem is developing novel anti-cancer therapeutics to address unmet need in intractable solid tumors. Because solid tumors are highly heterogeneous and evasive, recognizing cancerous cells, while avoiding damage to normal tissue, is a challenge. As a result, many targeted therapies quickly come up against resistance, resulting in patient relapses. ImmunoBiochem is solving the issue of tumor versus normal recognition by exploiting unique cancer targets in the tumor environment – a collection of features that are uniquely present in tumors and absent in the environment of normal cells.

Indoor air quality of buildings is becoming even more important today, with the persistence of COVID-19 pandemic. A new type of air filter, based on bead-on-string polyacrylonitrile, offers high ultrafine particles removal (above 99%) as well as low pressure drop. Environmental and Power Solutions and Canada Water Technology eXchange are joining forces to undertake research to investigate options to control COVID-19 virus.

In order to investigate proteins in their natural environment one can attach tiny reporter molecules to them that can be traced with appropriate instruments. However, these small reporter molecules may often cause strong perturbations to the functionality of the proteins, or cannot be seen due to experimental restrictions like low concentrations. Bioorthogonal chemistry aims to eliminate such experimental restrictions by using as inert molecules as possible to see how proteins really work.

Options are financial instruments that are used to manage risk, hedge investments, and speculate. The value of these options depends on the price of the underlying asset and a multitude of different variables. As a result, pricing models can become complex, requiring infeasibly expensive routines or simulations to be run to price a single option. One reason this procedure can be slow is that the model’s parameters need to be tuned to the market’s current conditions, reflected by an implied volatility surface (IVS), which gives the value of options with different parameters.

Wax emulsions are widely used in conjunction with wood adhesives to improve overall dimensional stability of the resulting wood products. In this study, we will investigate kraft lignin and waste tallow as sustainable, biobased partial replacements for fossil fuel derived wax. These renewable, hydrophobic materials can be formulated into a wax emulsion using conventional emulsification chemistry.