Innovative Projects Realized

Explore thousands of successful projects resulting from collaboration between organizations and post-secondary talent.

31620 Completed Projects

2978
AB
5221
BC
856
MB
696
NL
899
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9419
ON
9858
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98
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619
NB
1192
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Projects by Category

Ecophysiological consequences of environmental variability

Environmental variability is a fundamental component of adaptation; it is usually associated with modifications in the organism’s observable traits, particularly for those with limited plasticity. We will use a bioenergetic model as a framework to understand this variance in the organism’s traits. We will focus on the effect of individual physiological differences, which are represented by the parameters of the model, on the variance and covariance of life-history traits, such as growth and size, or reproductive output. First, we will show which are the consequences of inter-individual physiological differences, in constant and also different environments. Second, we will elucidate the effect of individual differences when there is environmental variability (in temperature and resource abundance). Our results will provide a theoretical approach to distinguish between the sources of variance in the organism’s observable traits. Furthermore, our findings will contribute to understanding how different species adapt to changing environments.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Amy Hurford

Student:

Partner:

Institut national de la recherche agronomique (Paris)

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Education

University:

Memorial University of Newfoundland

Program:

Globalink Research Award

Modélisation thermique de la construction en bois et en argile

L’intérêt pour ce mode de construction traditionnelle à base d’argile et de bois gagne de l’intérêt à
l’international, comme un consensus émerge pour diminuer les émissions en CO2. La construction en
bois et en argile armée de fibres végétales est connue comme la technique du torchis. Cette méthode est
particulièrement appropriée dans le climat plus chaud comme en Afrique. Le besoin de maisons est
particulièrement important dans ce continent et des alternatives au ciment sont nécessaires, comme la
production de ciment représente 5-8% des émissions. De plus, les bâtiments en bois et en argile
permettent une ouverture de marché importante pour le bois du Québec.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Claudiane Ouellet-Plamondon

Student:

Partner:

Quebec Wood Export Bureau

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

École de technologie supérieure

Program:

Accelerate

Improved process modeling and optimization of the Birla Carbon Process

This project is a collaborative relationship between the Combustion Research Laboratory (CRL) at the University of Toronto and Birla Carbon. Birla Carbon is one of the largest manufacturers and suppliers of high quality carbon black additives globally. Carbon black has usage potential across an array of diverse application segments including rubber products, black pigment, UV protection and conductivity in plastics. Carbon black performance is determined by its fundamental properties including its particle and aggregate size, surface activity and physical form.
The objectives of this project are to improve and validate a model to predict the carbon black particle size distribution during the production process. This will increase our understanding of how the particles evolve during the process and will be used to better understand ways to control the process to produce the desired final product.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Murray Thomson

Student:

Partner:

Birla Carbon

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

University of Toronto

Program:

Accelerate

A scalable lab-grown meat with tuneable fat content using tissue engineering techniques

Meat is a food staple that is consumed and enjoyed worldwide. Global meat consumption has grown by with population growth and increase in per person consumption accounting equally for that increase. Further economic development is expected to further increase demand for meat and meat products. Livestock production to meet this insatiable demand is unsustainable due to high water consumption, greenhouse gas emission, accelerated soil erosion and pollution of waterbodies. Although solutions such as promoting low-meat diet style or switching to plant-based proteins have been suggested, their implementation hasn’t been very successful. Here, tissue culture methods developed originally for regenerative medicine have been repurposed for growing meat aggregates (minced meat type granules) in the lab as a way to address this environmental challenge.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Ravi Selvaganapathy

Student:

Partner:

I-INC Foundation for Business Development;iBoost Zone

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

McMaster University

Program:

Accelerate

In-field real time phosphate monitoring system for algal bloom prevention

The increase in population and associated contamination of surface and/or ground water with phosphates, nitrates, and heavy metals has resulted in scarcity of clean water in many cities around the world. Phosphate is a major pollutant responsible for the global algal bloom in various water bodies like lakes and ponds. The project focuses on developing a solid-state electrochemical phosphate sensor that can be used as a tool to predict and prevent algal blooms. The sensing system will consist of two electrodes: the phosphate sensing electrode (e.g. metal based sensor) and a reference electrode. Electrochemical sensors have many advantages over the widely used conventional colorimetric sensors. They have minimal or no chemical requirements, show less interference from turbidity, are easy to fabricate and are cost effective. Current electrochemical sensors for phosphate sensing are mainly dominated by metal based potentiometric sensors. However, metal-based sensors have a few critical shortcomings such as limited measuring range (10-1M to 10-5M)[1], single use, and inability to mass manufacture, which limits their application in environmental applications[2], [3]. The project will extend the sensor range to 10-1M to 10-7M which is critical for measuring phosphate in the environment, improve sensor reusability and develop a mass manufacturing process.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Ravi Selvaganapathy

Student:

Partner:

I-INC Foundation for Business Development;iBoost Zone

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

McMaster University

Program:

Accelerate

Rapid bioprinting of ring structures using primary lung epithelial cells for drug screening and wound healing assay

Disease modelling and drug development includes a stage where cells are grown and studied inside a
laboratory under controlled conditions for a varying set of parameters. One of the most commonly
performed lab tests are wound healing or cell migration where the effect of different concentrations of
drug or an allergen is studied over time. The state-of-art method of performing these wound healing
tests lack consistency, time consuming and intrusive. We have developed a method where the cells are
patterned on a surface using an external magnetic field. It takes 3 hours to pattern cells and no scratch
is needed in this case. This method is consistent and is scalable to a micro well plate format. We are
partnering with Lab2Market to perform a market research and customer discovery for the developed
technology.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Ishwar Puri

Student:

Partner:

I-INC Foundation for Business Development;iBoost Zone

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

McMaster University

Program:

Accelerate

In-line Method Development for Vaccine Production

The safety and quality of vaccine products are an integral requirement for all vaccine manufacturing and production. Most current tests are using laboratory equipment that requires trained personnel, equipment qualification, method validation, manual sampling, and testing at various stages of product manufacturing. However, the off-line testing is slow, often requires significant volume of material for testing and requires extensive maintenance and upkeep of many different analytical instruments. This is both expensive and time consuming. On the other hand, Process Analytical Technology (PAT) provides fast turnaround time without the need for sampling, allowing manufacturing scientists opportunity to make real-time decisions to better ensure quality and consistency in product manufacturing. Furthermore, PAT provides a much faster vehicle for analytical assessment of manufacturing processes during product development, such as fermentation monitoring or protein purification.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Yi Sheng

Student:

Partner:

Sanofi

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Pharmaceuticals; Biotechnology; Advanced Manufacturing

University:

York University

Program:

Accelerate

Design of new manufacturing techniques and development of novel composite materials for personal protectiveequipment (PPE)

In the wake of recent school shootings in U.S. and increasing gun crimes in Canada, parents consider taking additional measures to protect themselves and children safe. We aimed at the development/manufacture of affordable and flexible bullet/knife resistant backpacks for civilians. The backpacks could be used as a shield against bullets/knife to save life. Current available products are expensive and not affordable for everyone. Additionally, they are not flexible/comfortable for everyday use and lack protection against knife attacks. Another potential product development for us will be the design and manufacture of ballistic suits and protective garments for civilians (especially those who travel to dangerous places) which provide reliable resistance against a multitude of threats (including knife attacks), while enhancing the flexibility and lightness for comfort and mobility of the wearer over current solutions. The available protective products in the market cost thousands of dollars lack protection against knife attacks. We invented a novel technology to make lightweight and flexible composite panels and they have successfully passed preliminary ballistic/knife tests according to standard protocols. The objective of this project is to gain a competitive edge in personal protective market and bring affordable and high-quality protective backpacks and clothing into Canadian/U.S. markets.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Ravi Selvaganapathy

Student:

Partner:

I-INC Foundation for Business Development;iBoost Zone

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

McMaster University

Program:

Accelerate

AutoMate: A physiological fatigue detection system for drowsy driving prevention

Sleeping behind the wheel is one of the leading causes of road accidents and there currently exists a lack of definite limits on fatigue. The United States of America’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration cites that over 100,000 road accidents in 2017 can be directly attributed to drowsy driving , and when over 1 in 2 Ontarian drivers admit to driving drowsy in the last month, it’s easy to see why this can be so dangerous. In fact, going 24 hours without sleep is equal to having a blood alcohol content of 0.10 %. That’s 0.02% above the legal driving limit. Despite knowing the dangerousness of being drowsy while driving, it is difficult to define and set limits on fatigue because of large inter- and intra-driver variability. While the current technologies to this problem are unfeasible and expensive because they are complex and are only available exclusively to high-end cars. The current systems also examine driving behaviour without focusing on the driver, lacking an adaptive user-level approach. Our system, AutoMate, is a portable, low-cost, low-power, fatigue detection system, based on driver physiological signals that detects driver drowsiness and provide haptic stimulation to invoke increased alertness.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Sridhar Krishnan

Student:

Partner:

I-INC Foundation for Business Development;iBoost Zone

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Toronto Metropolitan University

Program:

Accelerate

Hybrid low-Inertia Turbine Storage System (HITSS)

Hybrid low-inertia Turbine Storage System (HITSS) is a samara-inspired wind turbine accompanied by any commercial battery storage system. Inspired by the autorotating maple seeds, the HITSS wind turbine is designed to track the sudden changes of the wind speed in a similar way to maple seeds (samara seeds). The main objective of the proposed project is to develop strategies for gathering market intelligence and learn to assess the market value of HITSS through workshops offered by Lab2Market. Furthermore, the design of HITSS will be tweaked based on the feedback of the potential customers and stakeholders, and a full-size prototype will be built and tested.

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Faculty Supervisor:

David Rival

Student:

Partner:

I-INC Foundation for Business Development

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Queen's University

Program:

Accelerate

A Window into the Future: Dye?Sensitized Solar Cells in Buildings

Solar cells are an incredible source of renewable energy. As with all technologies, though, they should be cheap,
easy to adopt, and smart. Dye-Sensitized Solar cells are solar cells that are not only highly effective at creating
energy from the sun but are also capable of being adopted into homes in new and unique ways. We are developing
a method of converting existing windows into solar cells. Throug this technology a window would still act as a
window, except it would also be capable of harvesting energy from the sun and powering a home.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Bryan Koivisto

Student:

Partner:

I-INC Foundation for Business Development;iBoost Zone

Discipline:

Physics

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Toronto Metropolitan University

Program:

Accelerate

Product Development of 65W Digital PD Adapter

USB Type-C Power Delivery (PD) is a universal fast-charging protocol for powering cell phones, tablets and laptop computers with the same power supply. It has been promoted as the next generation of charging technology by industry leading companies such as Google and Apple. This all-in-one charging solution will allow customers to carry only one charger for all their portable devices. It is anticipated that PD adapter will gain an exponentially increase of market share of the whopping 1.7 billion shipment market in the coming few years. Existing PD products are not satisfactory from the point view of size and weight, because their switching frequency is limited. The circuit and control strategy developed in this project can achieve 10 times higher switching frequency to allow significant size reduction of the adapter. As compared to the industry benchmark, the developed 65W prototype is 70% smaller than Apple’s 61W PD adapter. Besides, the proposed technology achieves higher power conversion efficiency than the best product available on market to facilitate the energy conservation goals.

View Full Project Description
Faculty Supervisor:

Yan-Fei Liu

Student:

Partner:

I-INC Foundation for Business Development;iBoost Zone

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Queen's University

Program:

Accelerate

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Mitacs — Return on Innovation

Mitacs is funded by the Government of Canada, the Government of Alberta, the Government of British Columbia, Research Manitoba, the Government of New Brunswick, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Government of Nova Scotia, the Government of Ontario, Innovation PEI, the Government of Quebec, the Government of Saskatchewan, and the Government of Yukon.