Production of FDCA directly from glucose/fructose in a continuous-flow two-stage reactor system and study of reaction kinetics

2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA), as one of the most promising green chemicals, has found a variety of commercial applications, particularly in the synthesis of polyesters, polyamides, and plasticizers as well as adhesives and coatings. FDCA is commonly produced from pure 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF) by selective oxidation. However, pure 5-HMF is by far very expensive, generated by catalytic […]

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Development of Novel Aluminum Alloys and Metal Matrix Composites Strengthened with Rare Earth Elements and Nano Ceramic and Carbon Particles

This purpose of the proposed project is to comprehensively study the effects that nickel (Ni), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn) and nano-scale particles have on the microstructure and high temperature mechanical properties of aluminum-cerium (Al-Ce) based alloys. This research will use conventional sintering and casting processes to determine how varying the cooling rate during casting and […]

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Design and fabrication of a power-efficient AI-Processor for Edge computing

This project will allow us to develop a microelectronic chip prototype of an energy-efficient AI processor. The AI processor exhibits a 1000 times reduction in power profile compared to standard cloud-based GPUs. Tasks that can be transferred from server GPUs to this solution and deploying our AI-Processor solution to EDGE can estimate substantial energy savings […]

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A Data-Driven Automation Framework for Chromatography-based Purification of High-value Biotherapeutics

A critical task towards maximizing productivity in the manufacturing of biotherapeutics such as monoclonal antibodies is selecting the appropriate separation technology or sequence of technologies that meet the purity requirements of regulatory agencies (e.g. Health Canada) and maximize product recovery to reduce the overall cost per dose. The focus of this research project is two-fold. […]

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Complex Gill Disease Initiative

Complex gill disease affects millions of farmed Atlantic salmon on the Pacific coast of North America, each year. This disease results in hundreds of millions of dollaras in lost revenue for the industry, yet there are few tools for early diagnosis of the disease/syndrome and no current treatment/intervention strategies that work to control it. The […]

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User Adaptive Systems for Behaviour Change in Health And Wellness

There has been a dramatic increase in digital well-being products in recent years and there is a market saturated with ineffective user experiences and little to no sustainable, desired behavioural change. By assessing and enhancing the effectiveness of a personalized approach to digital well-being app interaction through machine learning and emotion-driven adaptive computing, we can […]

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Truck Safety Survey

Fleetmetrica is a new business startup that offers an innovative and patent-pending technology called SafetyMonitor for monitoring and controlling fleet safety of large commercial vehicles. Fleetmetrica has achieved success with initial fleets, including improved driver habits using their product and are interested in formally quantifying the effectiveness of their technology. Fleetmetrica is also interested in […]

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Enhancing visualization of manufacturing complexity highlights on CAD file

Currently, the service provided by GRAD4 has an interface for visualization of CAD models. However, there is still room for improvement in speed and comprehensibility for the users: both manufacturers and buyers. The main challenge of implementing the improvements is in relatively high computational cost of such visualizations: while a regular PC handles such task […]

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Exploring perceptions on the QUIT smartcase to guide continued development of this digitally enhanced technology for reducing and quitting dependence on e-cigarettes.

There is growing evidence that e-cigarettes, also known as vaping, have led to an upsurge health risk to young people in Canada, including long-term harm to brain development and respiratory health. Due to such adverse effects, more and more young people indicate a desire to quit. However, such desires often become unsuccessful due to the […]

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