Innovative Projects Realized

Using bioelectrochemical approaches to study microbes associated with oil and gas operations

Microbial activities in oil and gas operations can be beneficial or detrimental which economically impact the energy industry. Microorganisms can be responsible for souring and microbiologically influenced corrosion which damage oil and gas infrastructure, but they can also play a beneficial role in enhancing energy production, recovering chemicals from waste streams, bioremediation, and biofuel production. The threat of global warming and diminishing fossil fuel resources is creating an ever-increasing drive to implement new technologies for renewable fuel production. We propose to design a simple bioelectrochemical system (BES) in order to study different metabolic activities of microorganisms associated with oil and gas systems. Bioelectrochemical systems can interconvert electrical and chemical energy enabling electricity generation, biofuel and chemical synthesis, wastewater treatment, desalination, microbial corrosion monitoring, and bioremediation. The innovation of the proposed research is in the use of BES systems to carry out multiple desirable tasks simultaneously. TO BE CONT’D

Investigation of mechanical and electrical properties of polymeric nanocomposites under erosion – Year two

In the upstream pipelines, the application of the internal pipeline coatings with specialized polymer has been utilized to protect pipeline from corrosion and abrasive wears. The coatings are rearranged or re-lined when the coating wears out. However, there is no direct and continuous monitoring for the integrity of internal pipeline coatings. Thus the rearrangement or re-lining of the coating is performed pre-emptively before fully utilizing the coating. It is required to develop a novel technique, not only for the efficiency but also to prevent pipeline leakage. The proposed project will develop a system embedded inside the coating, changing its electrochemical properties upon damage. Various nanocomposite compositions will be tested, leading to the optimized sensor system. The proposed project gives ROSEN group advantages in the pipeline industry as they could extend the lifetime of coating and ensure the safety of pipeline.

Investigation of mechanical and electrical properties of polymeric nanocomposites under erosion

In the upstream pipelines, the application of the internal pipeline coatings with specialized polymer has been utilized to protect pipeline from corrosion and abrasive wears. The coatings are rearranged or re-lined when the coating wears out. However, there is no direct and continuous monitoring for the integrity of internal pipeline coatings. Thus the rearrangement or re-lining of the coating is performed pre-emptively before fully utilizing the coating. It is required to develop a novel technique, not only for the efficiency but also to prevent pipeline leakage. The proposed project will develop a system embedded inside the coating, changing its electrochemical properties upon damage. Various nanocomposite compositions will be tested, leading to the optimized sensor system. The proposed project gives ROSEN group advantages in the pipeline industry as they could extend the lifetime of coating and ensure the safety of pipeline.

Simulation of the foamy oil flow during the solution gas drive production of heavy oils – Year two

Foamy oil behavior is a unique phenomenon associated with cold production of heavy crude oils. It is believed that the foaming mechanism has a significant impact on the abnormally high production rate of viscous crude oils observed in many heavy oil producing reservoirs through solution gas drive.
Due to the non-equilibrium nature of the foamy oil flow, the mathematical modeling of this process involves few challenges. The main non-equilibrium process exist between solution gas and free gas that leads to a significant supersaturation of dissolved gas in the oil phase. Even though different models on foamy-oil behavior with a diverse experimental data are available in literature, there is scarcity of published experimental data for a heavy oil reservoir with a Canadian origin. This research will be focused on developing a kinetic model which is developed and tuned for a heavy oil reservoir with a Canadian origin.TO BE CONT’D

Simulation of the foamy oil flow during the solution gas drive production of heavy oils

Foamy oil behavior is a unique phenomenon associated with cold production of heavy crude oils. It is believed that the foaming mechanism has a significant impact on the abnormally high production rate of viscous crude oils observed in many heavy oil producing reservoirs through solution gas drive.
Due to the non-equilibrium nature of the foamy oil flow, the mathematical modeling of this process involves few challenges. The main non-equilibrium process exist between solution gas and free gas that leads to a significant supersaturation of dissolved gas in the oil phase. Even though different models on foamy-oil behavior with a diverse experimental data are available in literature, there is scarcity of published experimental data for a heavy oil reservoir with a Canadian origin. This research will be focused on developing a kinetic model which is developed and tuned for a heavy oil reservoir with a Canadian origin.TO BE CONT’D

The Smart Bed Co-Innovation Project: An Industry-Partnered Initiative to Improve Patient Experience, Quality of Care, and Staff Workload Using Emerging Non-Intrusive Technologies

Information technologies that can provide health professionals detailed patient information in ‘real time’ can improve

patient experience, quality of care, and staff workload. However, to date, Canada’s health care system has been challenged

by limited adoption and implementation of new information technologies that hold great promise for achieving health

system transformation. To address these challenges, the Ivey International Centre for Health Innovation and Hewlett-

Packard Labs have formed a collaborative partnership along with Humber River Regional Hospital in Toronto, ON. The

proposed research will engage academic and industry researchers, information technology leaders, key decision-makers and

end-users (clinicians and patients/families) in co-creating, implementing, and testing out next generation HP information

technologies in the form of Smart Beds. The Smart Bed project envisions equipping patient rooms with highly sensitive

prototype accelerometers and related detection subsystems in an effort to demonstrate the types of patient level data contact pressure, vital signs) and information (e.g. falls, excessive/lack of movement, sleeping patterns, pain….

Modeling of the Wear Performance of Carbide-Based Overlays and Coatings

Surface degradation during Oil & Gas and Mining operations in the Province of Alberta are pervasive. This has resulted in extensive research and development activities into the development of advanced surface modifications that are based on overlays and coatings. Most research effort has focused on materials selection, fabrication, and optimization of wear performance of those modifications through experimentation, trial-and-error, and microstructural analysis. This proposed research project has been designed with a view to developing advanced modelling solutions that will result in a priori prediction of wear and erosion behavior of select overlay and coating systems. By developing such solutions in collaboration with the partner organization, InnoTech Alberta, the applicants expect that the partner organization will be able to select and test the performance of appropriate overlay and coatings materials without incurring significant costs and will be able to deploy suitable overlay and coating solutions efficiently into the stream of commerce.

Low-cost Real-time Multi-constellation GNSS Precise Point Positioning for Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) – Year two

Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) enables smart traffic management and provides various innovative services including better safety, more road information, etc., which has drawn a lot of attention. The development of next-generation ITS services and applications must depend on more accurate positioning information at decimeter to even centimeter-level. Such capabilities are crucial because all of the innovative applications are based on the precise positioning of land vehicles. For example, for Vehicle-To-Vehicle (V2V), an automobile technology designed to allow automobiles to communicate with each other to avoid traffic accidents and improve the traffic efficiency. The V2V technology has been extended to V2X to include Vehicle-to-Pedestrian, Vehicle-to-Infrastructure and Vehicle-to-Pedestrian. These innovative technologies and the emerging autonomous cars are becoming significant components of next-generation ITS systems. Without the accurate positioning information as the foundation, the mentioned technologies are impossible to be achieved. TO BE CONT’D

Low-cost Real-time Multi-constellation GNSS Precise Point Positioning for Intelligent Transportation System (ITS)

Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) enables smart traffic management and provides various innovative services including better safety, more road information, etc., which has drawn a lot of attention. The development of next-generation ITS services and applications must depend on more accurate positioning information at decimeter to even centimeter-level. Such capabilities are crucial because all of the innovative applications are based on the precise positioning of land vehicles. For example, for Vehicle-To-Vehicle (V2V), an automobile technology designed to allow automobiles to communicate with each other to avoid traffic accidents and improve the traffic efficiency. The V2V technology has been extended to V2X to include Vehicle-to-Pedestrian, Vehicle-to-Infrastructure and Vehicle-to-Pedestrian. These innovative technologies and the emerging autonomous cars are becoming significant components of next-generation ITS systems. Without the accurate positioning information as the foundation, the mentioned technologies are impossible to be achieved. TO BE CONT’D

Catalytic Heavy Oil Upgrading under Methane Environment

The proposed research is focused on designing and optimizing novel catalysts that catalyze the activation of methane, the principal component of natural gas, to upgrade heavy oil, and obtaining a comprehensive understanding of the involved reaction mechanism. Heavy oil is upgraded to meet the pipeline transportation requirements, while methane is incorporated to the formed synthetic crude at lowered temperature and pressure (<5 MPa). Compared with commonly practiced hydrotreating process, which consumes hydrogen originating from the steam reforming of methane, the operating cost, energy consumption and CO2 emission are reduced in the proposed approach. On the other side, methane finds its way to be incorporated to the value added liquid products. The catalysts are metal modified nano porous materials, which allow flexible product selectivity by applying post-synthetic treatment to the support materials and modifying the condition of metal species. TO BE CONT'D

Nanostructured cathode material for high performance all-solid-state sodium battery – Year two

Lithium batteries are almost universally integrated in modern electronics applications due to their high efficiency and scalability. However, the liquid lithium-ion electrolyte utilized in these batteries has a multitude of safety concerns including flammability, toxicity, and the ability to explode if short-circuited. These issues lead to problems while operating in hazardous environments, more stringent transportation regulations, and pose a threat to the personal safety of consumers. Geometric Energy Corporation is working in conjunction with the Thangadurai Group to address these problems by developing an all-solid-state sodium-ion battery system. This system will be non-flammable, non-explosive, and non-toxic, eliminating these issues that are present in liquid-lithium batteries. Our battery technology will be applicable anywhere a liquid-lithium-ion battery is currently used, including the electric vehicle sector, personal electronics, and grid-scale applications. TO BE CONT’D

Optimization of Cloud Computing Applications through Cloud Data Mining and Analytics

Cloud Computing allows consumers to reduce the costs associated with the purchase

and maintenance of computing infrastructure, platform and software resources by

exploiting on-demand resource provisioning and pay-per-use payment models.

Although, cloud computing has offered significant benefits to the IT industry, the

research on cloud computing is currently at its infancy, with many issues still to be

addressed. In this project, we will investigate current cloud computing services and

state-of-the-art Analytics and Data mining techniques to research and develop a data

mining engine for improving cost efficiencies and optimizations in cloud resource

consumption. A full analysis will be conducted on applying analytics and data mining

techniques on cloud computing platform and infrastructure in enterprise IT and the

impact of business units within the organization. Recommendations for flagging high

cloud data transfer charges, unused cloud resources, operational efficiencies, and

areas of automation are encapsulated into a final report.