Environmental aging is responsible for many industrial failures. Using a protective coating is one of the most common and also efficient methods to protect material surfaces against environmental attack, and consequently extend their life. For modern coatings used for industrial applications, besides high chemical stability and good adhesion, new functionalities such electrical conductivity or anti-static […]

The proposed project is a characterization study on chitin nanowhisker nanocomposites. Chitin nanowhiskers are derived from chitin, a naturally occurring biopolymer found in arthropod exoskeletons, and offer great potential for reinforcement and property enhancement once blended with typical engineering plastic matrices. Compared to traditional inorganic fillers such as carbon nanotubes and graphene, chitin nanowhiskers are […]

Nanomaterials are the fundamental building blocks of nanotechnology. Despite the advances in nanomaterial synthesis, no reliable technique exists to characterize their physical properties. The key challenge lies with the lack of accurate force and displacement feedback. To tackle the problem, leading researchers from University of Toronto and from Toronto Nano Instrumentation (TNI) Inc. are working […]

This project is geared towards the development of a cost-effective method to fabricate thin films of carbon materials, such as diamond. The idea is to use solution-based methods coupled to electrochemistry to produce the films. Avenues for the deposition of the film on surfaces of arbitrary shapes will also be explored. Carbon based thin films, […]

Organic light emitting diodes, or ‘OLEDs’ have become a common technology in everyday displays such as mobile phones, laptops, and televisions. These types of devices rely on an OLED structure that uses ‘bottom-emission’, meaning that the top of the device consists of a non-transparent backplane, and the light and colours generated in the device are […]

Blending carbonaceous materials with thermoplastic materials can lead to a significant improvement of the resulting electrical, mechanical, thermal, and gas barrier properties compared with the unfilled polymer. Graphene, the name given to a material consisting of two-dimension layers of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice, has extraordinary properties which make possible to produce a […]

The medical marijuana industry has attracted significant attention recently due to its impending legalization in Canada in the coming year. Along with legalization comes the need for accurate and dependable characterization of the components in the product that is to be consumed by the end user. Keystone Labs is a certified cannabis analysis lab with […]

The conventional form of hydrogenated amorphous silicon, prepared through plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition, has proven itself to be a useful material for a wide range of device applications. It has been shown that the hydrogen atoms that reside within hydrogenated amorphous silicon are responsible for its favorable electronic properties, these hydrogen atoms passivating the […]

Our previous work has shown the promise of monodisperse phytoglycogen for many applications. However, these experiments only scratch the surface of potential uses since the chemistry of the particles (as extracted) is fixed. Nanoparticles offer very high surface areas, and glucose units are easily modifiable, thus there exist a multitude of ways to chemically modify […]

Environmental pollution is one of the greatest problems that the world is facing today. The conventional detergent and surfactant water based methods are costly, not eco- friendly. Applying photocatalytic coatings that utilize solar energy on the exterior and interior surfaces of buildings is a promising method to tackle air pollution and clean the surfaces with […]

Blending different polymers in order to produce new engineering material with added value is a standard method in polymer industry. Incompatibility between immiscible polymers is the main challenge in preparing these blends. This incompatibility can result in poor mechanical and morphological properties. Using compatibilizers and nanoadditives are two main methods of compatibilizing immiscible polymer blends. […]

In a prior project, promising results were obtained showing the possibility of using graphene/polymer composites as advanced materials having superior properties than the conventional carbon black loaded polymers. The composites obtained presented electrical conductivities with values of about 10-2 S/m when the percolation threshold was exceeded, an increase of more than 12 orders of magnitude […]