The mineral mining industry in Canada is rapidly shifting toward more sustainable practices that reduce the environmental impacts of extraction, wastewater, and emissions. Although often overlooked, microorganisms, or bacteria, living in the soils and water of mine sites and mining waste materials, collectively known as the ““mining microbiome”, exert strong influence on all stages of […]

Surfactants (including emulsifiers) are a group of molecules that are critical for the function of many industrial processes and commercial products. Conventional surfactants are produced from non-renewable sources (e.g., petroleum products), can persist in the environment for long periods of time, and can be toxic to various plants and animals. “Biosurfactants” are surfactants that are […]

Fort Nelson & its surrounding area have been devastated economically by recent changes to their Gas Industry leaving more than 1000 well sites abandoned and not restored. Currently, the area is looking to explore other natural resources in an attempt to save their livelihoods. A previous MITACs partnership with Mindbody Networks Inc. (2018-2020) revealed several […]

This research aims to address one of the challenging problems in open science, i.e., how to reliably ensure that authors share all of the datasets, code, protocols, and any new lab materials associated with their articles. The solution will employ state-of-the-art natural language processing techniques to detect sentences where authors describe data collection or the […]

Visual analytics “the science of analytical reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interfaces” is a new approach to the timely and effective analysis of complex technical and operational systems. Our previous MITACS internships at Aeroinfo applied this scientific approach to mixed-initiative human/computational analysis to improve aircraft safety & reliability analysis and business planning, resulting in changes […]

Shortening the difference between where energy is generated and where it is being used, the need for heavy-duty transmission infrastructure could be avoided to reduce the amount of energy lost along the way and eliminate the impact of grid failure. The proposed project, a thermal microgrid, can connect alternative generation, renewable generation, rejected or waste […]

In order to achieve breakthroughs in the understanding and development of materials, new and advanced analysis methods are crucial. Especially, looking at the µm to atomic scale, which is still challenging, helps to understand fundamental mechanisms behind macroscopic phenomena. This understanding, in turn, can help to improve manufacturing processes and in the design of new […]

Energy storage technology is critical for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and transitioning to renewable energy and should be designed to suit the cold environment in Canada. In collaboration with Atlas Power Technologies Inc., a B.C.-based clean technology company, Dr. Liu’s group will design and build an aqueous zinc-ion capacitor (AZIC) technology with high-power, intrinsic safety, […]

The project is designed with the following objectives: Improving the statistical formulation for the recently developed stock assessment model for BC lakes so that it maybe fitted to more types of field data, e.g., stocking, gillnet test fishing and angling effort data, and applying it toimprove understanding of kokanee-rainbow trout interactions in lakes, assembling lake […]

This project aims to demonstrate the feasibility of a novel system for an efficient and environmentally friendly wastewater treatment plant to produce clean water and hydrogen production as a clean fuel. Hydrogen, as an important energy carrier, is a part of Canada’s energy transition towards net-zero emission and an important asset in Canada’s fight against […]

The British Columbia aquaculture industry sends 3-4,000,000 Expanded Polystyrene (EPS Styrofoam) fish boxes to market annually. Globally, wild and farmed combined, circulate tens of millions annually. Food industry including Sea-food packaging is one of the largest producers of package waste in landfills, and this has driven the need for a recyclable/biodegradable packaging as a replacement […]

Future scarcity of phosphorus supply, increasing cost and issues of eutrophication are potential drivers promoting nutrient recovery from wastewaters. The proposed project aims to develop cheap and environmentally friendly technology for the recovery of phosphorus and nitrogen from municipal, agricultural, dairy, food processing, petrochemicals, and biomass processing industries wastewaters. Successful completion of the project will […]