Table of Contents
June Vol.64, No./No6
Features Electrovaya Inc./BC Hydro/University of Waterloo, Engineering Research
business
14
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
Think Big
Canada will be the world’s first sustainable energy superpower. Adapted from a report edited by Richard J. Marceau and Clement W. Bowman
chemistry
24
All Grown Up
When it comes to lithium-ion batteries, size matters. By Tim Lougheed
20
Going Viral
Marc Aucoin scales up virus production by using them to tinker with cellular machinery. By Tyler Irving
Departments 5
From the Editor
7
Letters to the Editor
9
Guest Column By Roland Andersson
10
hemical News C By Tyler Irving
27
Society News
30
ChemFusion By Joe Schwarcz
june 2012 CAnadian Chemical News 3
Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering (CSChE)
62nd Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference
VAncouver British Columbia, Canada
October 14–17, 2012 Energy, Environment and Sustainability
www.csche2012.ca
FRom the editor
Executive Director
Roland Andersson, MCIC
Editor
Jodi Di Menna
news editor
Tyler Irving, MCIC
art direction & Graphic Design
Krista Leroux Kelly Turner
contributing editors
Peter Calamai Tyler Hamilton Tim Lougheed
Society NEws
Bobbijo Sawchyn, MCIC Gale Thirlwall
Marketing Manager
Bernadette Dacey, MCIC
Marketing Coordinator
Luke Andersson, MCIC
Circulation
Michelle Moulton
Finance and Administration Director
Joan Kingston
Membership Services Coordinator
Angie Moulton
Editorial Board
Joe Schwarcz, MCIC, chair Milena Sejnoha, MCIC Bernard West, MCIC
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Subscription Rates Go to www.accn.ca to subscribe or to purchase single issues. The individual non-CIC member subscription price for 2012 is $100 CDN. The institutional subscription price for 2012 is $150 CDN. Single copies can be purchased for $10. ACCN (Canadian Chemical News/ L’Actualité chimique canadienne) is published 10 times a year by the Chemical Institute of Canada, www.cheminst.ca Recommended by the Chemical Institute of Canada (CIC), the Canadian Society for Chemistry (CSC), the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering (CSChE), and the Canadian Society for Chemical Technology (CSCT). Views expressed do not necessarily represent the official position of the Institute or of the Societies that recommend the magazine.
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T
he headline we wrote for our opening story, “Think Big,” has become something of a theme for this issue. We applied the title to an adaptation of a new book — a call for action, really — that presents the inspired idea that Canada can be the world’s first sustainable energy superpower. The words are apt not only because the authors propose that it is our propensity for mega-projects that will give Canada an innovation edge, but also because the vision itself is bold. So bold, in fact, that our Executive Director, Roland Andersson, is endorsing the idea that the CIC get behind the recommendations presented in the book and advocate to the federal government that they do the same. In our Q and A, we speak with Marc Aucoin who takes tiny things — viruses — and finds out how to produce them in big quantities to address big challenges like vaccines and gene therapy. Finally, contributing editor Tim Lougheed checks in on how lithium-ion batteries are growing up to fulfill the big expectations set for them by alternative energy demands. Speaking of the big time, our own Tyler Irving, news editor, is this year’s recipient of the Science in Society Herb Lampert Emerging Journalist Award, administered by the Canadian Science Writers’ Association. Nobody deserves it more than Tyler who, every issue, finds and reports the latest news in the chemical sciences and engineering from all over Canada and delves deep with some of the biggest players in the field in his incisive Q and As. We’re also taking a fresh look at the big picture by revamping Society News at the back of the magazine. In these pages we regularly report on the activities of the CIC and its three Constituent Societies. We aim to expand this section both in the hard copy and online and try to capture as much as possible the extraordinary multitude of activities going on in our many programs, advocacy efforts, career services, awards, outreach initiatives, local sections, subject divisions and so on. In our readership survey conducted this winter, you told us you want more news of your fellow chemical scientists, engineers and technologists in Canada: new hires, promotions, job changes and other juicy tidbits. We’ll do our best to keep you in the loop with our new “Grapevine” column that will run every issue in Society News, but we need your help. Let us know if you’ve got news you think we should share. It’s good to be back! I hope you enjoy the read.
Indexed in the Canadian Business Index and available online in the Canadian Business and Current Affairs database. ISSN 0823-5228
Write to the editor at magazine@accn.ca
Visit us at www.accn.ca june 2012 CAnadian Chemical News 5
Letters to the Editor
I
n response to the federal budget released last March, the Chemical Institute of Canada issued a press release in partnership with the Canadian Consortium for Research (CCR). In the release, the CCR took issue
with reductions to the research granting councils, the redirection of money toward applied research as opposed to pure research, the loss of graduate student scholarships and cuts to government science, but applauded increases in investments in the Industrial Research Assistance Program, and in infrastructure such as CANARIE and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. We asked for your feedback.
Ghosts of Research Past I think the comparison with U.S. funding is apt and you can
glance at selected European research budgets (Scandinavia and Germany) and Japan to note how we are falling behind for our young people and regressing to be hewers of wood and drawers of water and oil. The opposition have zeroed in on the push back on environmental review. This should be an area of concern to scientists, of which the petrochemical industry is well aware. Federal science labs, in general, are ghosts of their former establishments. Even the NRC is now an applied lab with expected direct results for industry. This displays a complete misunderstanding in government of how science works. Iain J. McGilveray Retired Research Division Chief, Bureau of Drug Research, Health Canada Misconceived Forty-two years ago the Lamontagne Committee Report
described the state of scientific research and development in Canada. The federal government had several research establishments. The National Research Council had divisions of physics, chemistry, biochemistry, and biology. It had also started to make modest research grants to universities. Science based government departments (Agriculture, Defence, Energy Mines & Resources) had applied research establishments across the country. Government science ranged from pure to applied. Industry was found however, to be not pulling its weight for research, development, and innovation. Since then the government has progressively restructured its research activities in an attempt to compensate for the lack of industrial contributions. Government support for applied research continues to be substituted for support of pure research. This shift is directed by several common misconceptions. The first misconception is that pure and applied research are
unrelated. Applied research can only explore ways of using relevant existing science. The second misconception is that applied research projects can always be conducted without pure science bottlenecks being encountered. That commonly happens, so that relevant pure science must be created. Only then can the applied research proceed to its objectives. The third misconception is that new pure science has no potential for human benefits. This ignores the fact that benefits are not confined to practical inventions. Science also removes myths and superstitions that can become destructive. The fourth misconception is that applied research should be funded by government instead of the pure research that is needed to make it possible. If the relevant pure science already exists, then the private investors who expect to make profits from the applied research should pay for it. Donald S. Gamble Adjunct Professor, Department of Chemistry Saint Mary’s University Sayonara Scientists
While I am not myself employed by or in any way involved in scientific research, I am nonetheless concerned by the federal budget’s reflection of the Harper government’s ongoing disdain for scientific research in Canada. Without the innovations driven by pure and applied research, Canada will quickly fall (actually, is already falling) behind other Western countries, becoming, in effect, a Third World country in terms of its attitude towards science. We have the human and technological resources to be leaders in research. Instead of developing our assets in this regard, the new budget is sending the loud message that scientists may as well leave the country and look for work elsewhere. This is no way to grow and strengthen a country, a society. Hanne Armstrong Writer Faithless It seems that this is sort of typical of a government who “does
not believe in science.” [Last February Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver repeatedly evaded the question of whether or not he believes in the science of climate change.] Harry Nagata Member, Chemical Institute of Canada
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guest column
The budget and the new research reality
D
epending on where you sit the recent federal budget is either a boon or a disappointment. When the CIC sent out the Canadian Consortium for Research (CCR) press release on March 30 to members, we did so knowing researchers from industry, academia and government would see things differently from each other. But as one of about 20 member societies in CCR we have to develop positions of consensus. The press release strongly criticized the government for not increasing basic research funding; was it a fair assessment? It all depends on your perspective. For at least the last ten years, report after government-sponsored report has repeatedly cited meagre levels of industrial research and innovation as being a significant weakness in the Canadian economy. But one might ask “Why should the government assist industry with research dollars?” The answer: The private sector mandate is to make a profit. It’s hard to justify spending money on research — even applied research — when the outcome is not guaranteed. And investors are scrutinizing management decisions. Programs like the Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) and the Industrial Research and Development Internship (IRDI) are designed to connect university researchers with industry. From my earlier experience in the chemical industry, including several years in the research department of an industrial coatings company and later as a general manager of two chemical plants where we used IRAP extensively, I agree with the $220 million phase-in over two years
to double IRAP funding to companies. The budget also provides $14 million over the next two years to double the IRDI program for graduate students and post-docs. I give the government full marks for trying to change the research culture in Canadian industry. As for the granting councils and academic research funding, the budget calls for a $74 million reduction over the next two years. This is offset by reinvestments in the Councils of $37 million in 2012-2013, an amount equivalent to the reduction in the first year. For NSERC, the net potential reduction, expected in 2013-2014, is $15 million or 1.5 per cent of their total budget, including a 10 per cent decrease of operating expenses to be reached in the second year. This is on par with the 5 per cent and 10 per cent reduction that all federal government departments were asked to submit plans for. The reductions are to be applied under the proviso that: “programming in support of basic research, student scholarships, and industry-related initiatives and collaborations are preserved.” The budget includes $12 million annually in the Business Led Networks Centres of Excellence, $500 million for the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, $28 million to Canada’s Advanced Research and Innovation Network, $60 million for Genome Canada and $10 million for the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. The goal of the budget is to reduce the deficit; in this light, the academic research community did well. The most notable change to government research and funding is the shift in
By Roland Andersson
the National Research Council’s (NRC) management system from research institutes to targeted industrial programs. NRC will receive $67 million in 2012–2013 to refocus on “business-led, industry-relevant research.” The government’s wording is not entirely clear but the budget states that it “will consider ways to better focus the NRC on demand-driven research, consistent with the recommendations of the [Jenkins] Expert panel.” It is the chipping away at other government research programs, dollars and positions that concerns me. There is a tendency to think that the private sector can fill the void of these cut programs more efficiently than government. Time will tell. The research landscape is shifting in Canada. The government’s financial incentives to increase industry, academia and government collaboration appear to have the ultimate goal of changing our industrial culture to one where more companies will hire research scientists and engineers — and the payoff will be innovation and its benefits to society. Germany, Finland and Korea all have this extensive three-way collaborative culture. I would advocate strongly for this in Canada. The CIC will create its own Brief to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance this year which will be used for discussions with federal bureaucrats and Members of Parliament with the goal of influencing the federal budget in 2013. Write to us at brief@cheminst.ca with your thoughts on what recommendations should be conveyed. Roland Andersson is CIC Executive Director.
june 2012 CAnadian Chemical News 9
Chemical News Alternative Energy
Zhi Li
Egg-based supercapacitor electrodes improve performance A team from the University of Alberta has made a dramatic improvement in supercapacitor performance using an unlikely material: eggshell membranes. Supercapacitors consist of two electrodes bathed in an electrolyte solution. During charge, positive ions accumulate on the surface of the negative electrode and vice versa, leading to an electrochemical potential that can later be released. Electrochemical supercapacitors hold promise as a way to store energy from intermittent sources, such as solar and wind. The electrodes are usually made of nanoporous carbon due to its high surface area, conductivity and ease of manufacture. Due to their high rate of discharge, supercapacitors are currently used in some niche applications, such as smoothing out electrical spikes in power grids. However, their low capacitance to date has prevented them from competing directly with rechargeable batteries. David Mitlin and his group in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering at U of A have been working on generating nanoporous carbon from biological waste, such as eggshell membranes. These are readily available from industrial egg-cracking facilities, which separate egg shells and membranes from the whites and yolks used in everything from noodles to cakes. The carbon-rich membranes have a specialized three-dimensional structure of interwoven fibres that improve the transfer of charged particles through the material. This allows better performance using a lower surface area. As a bonus, carbons made from these membranes contain nitrogen and oxygen-based groups which get oxidized or reduced during charge, providing a second mechanism to store energy. The work is published in Advanced Energy Materials. In the study, the team carbonized the membranes by carefully heating them to 800 C in an atmosphere of argon, preserving their structure. Their model capacitors reached 297 farads per gram, a capacitance significantly higher than unstructured nanoporous carbon, including that from biological sources. On top of that, the team detected only a three per cent fade in capacitance over 10,000 charge/discharge cycles. “Our egg-based capacitors show performance that is among the best in the world, while at the same time using a waste material,” says Mitlin. The group has received funding for three years to create commercial prototypes.
Carbonizing eggshell membranes in a way that preserves their unique porous structure could lead to improved electrodes for supercapacitors (top). Organic-derived carbons contain nitrogen and oxygen groups (bottom) that get oxidized or reduced during supercapacitor charging. This provides a second mechanism by which to store energy.
Biochemistry
Aspirin activates metabolic master switch
Adenosine monophosphate activated protein kinase (AMPK) is a metabolic master switch and a primary target for those seeking to treat type II diabetes. A new paper in Science shows that AMPK can be directly activated by salicylate, the active ingredient in Aspirin. Most drugs designed to act on AMPK do so by increasing levels of adenosine monophosphate (AMP) and adenosine diphosphate (ADP). These nucleotides accumulate when cells are stressed, such as during exercise and can trigger activation of AMPK. Only one drug, called A-769662, was known to activate AMPK by directly binding to the protein. “Clinical data on type II diabetic humans showed that when aspirin or salsalate (a salicylate precursor) were taken, there was a large drop in circulating free fatty acids,” says Gregory Steinberg,
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Canada's top stories in the chemical sciences and engineering
| Chemical News
Natural Resources
Max Jones
Breadfruit flowers contain mosquito repellent
The smoke of breadfruit flowers has long been used as a traditional mosquito repellent in Oceania. A new study has verified its effectiveness and pointed to the compounds responsible.
For centuries, Pacific islanders have burned breadfruit flowers to create a mosquitorepellent smoke. New research published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry has identified the chemical substances responsible. Max Jones led the research during his PhD in the Department of Biology at the University of British Columbia’s Kelowna campus. “During my literature review, I came across several mentions of burning the flowers to ward off flying insects, but no one had ever actually tested it before,” he says. Jones created extracts of both dried breadfruit flowers and smoke using a variety of solvents, as well as steam distillation. In collaboration with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he tested those extracts using a bioassay involving boxes of hungry Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that carries yellow fever. The bugs were exposed to a feeding bag coated with the extracts or a control, and the extracts with the highest repellency were further fractioned and analysed using NMR and mass spectrometry. Eventually, the team identified capric acid, undecanoic acid and lauric acid as active compounds. In the final experiment, the team found that commercially produced versions of these fatty acids, when applied in equimolar concentrations, performed even better than DEET (N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide), a common ingredient in mosquito repellents. In fact, previous large-scale screening studies have identified their potential as alternative mosquito repellents, and some companies are looking at using them in commercial repellent formulations. But for Jones, the most exciting part was validating the traditional use. “I was surprised to see how effective the compounds were; this wouldn’t be observed in just any smoke,” he says. “Breadfruit provides a food as well as mosquito repellent, in exactly the places that need these two items the most.”
associate professor in the Department of Medicine at McMaster University and one of the co-authors of the paper. “Since AMPK is important for regulating fatty acid metabolism, we pursued that angle,” he says. Experiments showed that salicylate did not impact levels of AMP or ADP. Consistent with this finding, salicylate was found to increase AMPK activity even in cells expressing a mutant form of AMPK that could not bind to AMP or ADP. In another experiment, salicylate was shown to have no effect on AMPK activity or fat oxidation in mice lacking the beta-1 subunit of AMPK, the putative binding site of A-769662. This suggests the mechanism for the two drugs is the same. Steinberg cautions that the levels of salicylate used in the experiments are far higher than one would get from a regular aspirin; it remains to be seen if lower doses would have the same effect. Still, the discovery that a simple, well-understood drug acts on AMPK in a way that few others can is encouraging for diabetes treatment. “All the pharmaceutical companies have had drug programs trying to find direct activators of AMPK, so it's pretty ironic that there was one right under our nose the whole time,” says Steinberg.
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Chemical News Catalysis
Robert Morris’s lab at the University of Toronto developed a useful family of catalysts based on iron, they were quite pleased. But according to the group’s latest paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the iron in question may be in the form of nanoparticles, which could potentially open up new applications. The catalysts enable the enantioselective transfer hydrogenation of ketones to alcohols, an important step in the synthesis of many pharmaceutical compounds. Each one consists of a derivative of an organic ligand, known as PNNP - the full name is (R,R)-{N,N´-bis[o-(diphenylphosphino)benzylidene]-1,2diphenylethylenediamine} - wrapped around an iron centre. Some of these systems rival the ruthenium-based complexes currently used for this reaction. Others are less active, but still commercially valuable because iron is less toxic and a hundred thousand times less expensive than ruthenium. In a quest to understand how the catalysts work, PhD candidate Jessica Sonnenberg analyzed the kinetics of some of the less active compounds. The results led her to believe that the iron at the centre of these complexes was not a single atom but a nanoparticle. This was confirmed with other techniques such as scanning electron microscopy and magnetometry. Asymmetric catalysis using nanoparticle-based catalysts is quite rare, and could have its advantages. “Theoretically, when you go to a nanoparticle, only
At least one of the PNNP-based catalysts developed at the University of Toronto appears to sit on the surface of iron nanoparticles, rather than being coordinated to a single atom. Heterogeneous catalysts capable of enantioselective transformations are rare.
the surface atoms are available to interact with the ligand, so you only need about half as much of this expensive compound,” says Sonnenberg. Another possibility would be to use the magnetic properties of iron to recover and reuse the catalyst after the reaction. The team is continuing to investigate these possibilities as well as working toward commercialization of the catalysts.
Biotechnology
Whale vomit ousted by new perfume compound Would you prefer a perfume derived from plants like fir trees or whale vomit? Believe it or not, those are currently your only choices, but a new discovery could provide a third option by allowing microorganisms to produce a chemical critical to the fragrance industry. Many perfumes contain ambroxan, a sweet, earthy-smelling compound which also acts as a fixative, preventing the fragrance from evaporating too quickly. Ambroxan comes from ambergris, the salt and sun-weathered remains of material expelled by sperm whales, which occasionally washes up on beaches. Because it is so rare, ambroxan can fetch thousands of dollars per kilogram. In response, the fragrance industry has developed a synthetic substitute called Ambrox. It is made from cis-abienol, a diterpenoid compound found in various plants including the balsam fir, but it’s not a perfect solution. “The balsam fir produces cis-abienol in an oily resin, or pitch,” says Joerg Bohlmann, a molecular biologist at the University of British Columbia. “The pitch contains several
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other diterpenoids with very similar properties, so it is not easy to separate and purify.” Many diterpenoids produced by plants are commercially valuable, from fragrance compounds like limonene to the anticancer drug taxol. Bohlmann’s lab has developed a database of genes that code for the enzymes which synthesize terpenoids in various species. By sequencing many genes from the balsam fir and comparing them to those in the database, Bohlmann’s group was able to identify the enzyme that catalyses single-step synthesis of cis-abienol. This was confirmed by cloning the gene into E.coli cells, which were then able to produce cis-abienol from the precursor compound (E,E,E)-geranylgeranyl diphosphate. The research is published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Bohlmann’s group is collaborating with a company interested in commercializing the new process. That’s good news for the perfume industry, but bad news for beachcombers hoping to strike it rich with a lump of whale vomit.
Jessica Sonnenberg
Iron-based catalyst contains nanoparticles
Most industrial catalysts are based on expensive and rare metals, so when
Canada's top stories in the chemical sciences and engineering
| Chemical News
Materials Science
Pressure-sensitive gel could improve o rganic electronics Thomas Baumgartner
Like the phospholipids that make up cell membranes, phosphole-lipids (far left) consist of a hydrophilic head and a hydrophobic tail, although in this molecule, the head is pi-conjugated. The phosphole-lipids form fibrous gels that change colour when subjected to mild mechanical stress (left). Applying heat makes the pattern disappear.
Although inspired by nature, a new phosphole-lipid molecule recently reported in Angewante Chemie has distinctly unnatural properties, forming fluorescent gels that change colour under mechanical stress. The unique material could have applications in organic electronics, such as solar cells and light-emitting diodes. For decades, pi-conjugated materials — in which electrons are de-localized between atomic bonds — have been mainstays of organic electronics. In bulk however, many pi-conjugated materials lack long-range order, leading to inefficient transport of electrons between molecules. Thomas Baumgartner and his group in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Calgary were inspired by phospholipids which naturally arrange themselves into the highly ordered structure that comprises cell membranes to create similar molecules with a hydrophilic, pi-conjugated head and a hydrophobic lipid tail. But instead of a bi-layered structure, their latest creation forms long fibres which become gels in hydrophobic solvents. By adjusting the side-groups of the molecule’s head, the team made gels that fluoresce at different wavelengths. As part of a test of energy transfer, the team mixed a blue compound and an orange compound in a ratio of 100:1. Upon mechanical stress, due to the close proximity of the compounds, a phenomenon called fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) caused the blue compound to shift its absorbed energy to the orange compound, resulting in a perceived colour change. “Because the fluorescence is so sensitive, it could be a mechanical stress sensor,” says Baumgartner. “For example, you could essentially paint it on a machine part and see if it’s been exposed to pressure.” In the long term, the group aims to investigate whether the self-assembling nature and tunable optical properties of the new material could lead to more efficient organic electronics. Policy and Law
Draft assessment on triclosan released
Chemical structure of 5-chloro-2(2,4-dichlorophenoxy)phenol, better known as triclosan
The federal government released its preliminary assessment report for triclosan on March 31, 2012. The report concludes that although the chemical poses no danger to human health, its possible risks to the environment, including its potential to accumulate in aquatic organisms, may require additional management measures. Triclosan (5-chloro-2-(2,4-dichlorophenoxy)phenol) is an antibacterial and antifungal agent found in over 1,600 personal care products, as well as treated materials such as rubber or plastic. The estimated human exposure is thousands of times smaller than that which causes health effects in laboratory animals, and under aerobic conditions triclosan breaks down quickly in air, water, soil and sediment. But since it’s so widely used, low levels of triclosan are present in the environment, particularly near wastewater treatment plants. Triclosan is already on the federal government’s Cosmetic Ingredient Hotlist, which restricts its concentration to 0.03 per cent or less in mouthwash and 0.3 per cent or less in other cosmetic products. In a statement, the Canadian Cosmetics, Toiletry and Fragrance Association said the industry would be reviewing the science and was committed to working with the government and other stakeholders to address the environmental concerns. "Meanwhile, Toronto-based Environmental Defence is pushing for an outright ban due to concerns over the potential of triclosan to act as an endocrine disruptor. In mid-May the group released a report in which they highlighted detectable levels of triclosan in the urine of several Canadian celebrities. In March 2010, the Canadian Medical Association issued a Public Health Issue Briefing calling for a ban on household antibacterial products - including those that contain triclosan - due to the potential for increased bacterial resistance. The triclosan assessment cites European and Australian studies that show no clear link between products containing triclosan and increased antibacterial resistance.
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Think BIG How our affinity for "big projects" and our bounty of naturalresources will make Canada the world's first sustainable energysuperpower.
As Canada enters the twenty-first century, it remains blessed with an abundant array of energy resources. There will be opportunities for managing big projects as an energy system which will be beyond the interest of individual companies acting alone and will require a new vision of Canada’s energy future. With the latter goal, Canada would be a country which sells higher value-added energy productsand technology to the world, using the proceeds to durably strengthen our economy and influence, and would be an exemplar of the stewardshipof all types of energy resources. It would have a real influenceon other nations to follow its lead. Canada’s wealth of energy can be used for its prosperity and internationaleffectiveness, to reduce energy poverty elsewhere, and reduce its carbon footprint.
What is needed is a vision.
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Business | Energy
C
anada’s federal government anguishes over the nation’s mediocre record in innovation. They defer to the conventional wisdom that innovation occurs through a linear process: the movement of ideas through basic research, applied research and then crossing the chasm to commercialization. But Canada’s history has shown it to be at its most innovative and productive when a large, focused, national project was underway, supported by vision and consensus, with an array of new, innovative technologies under development that were required for project completion. This pattern is evident in the digging of the Rideau Canal in the first part of the 19th century, the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1880s, the completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959 and many other examples throughout Canadian history. The construction and subsequent operational phases of these projects have resulted in significant job creation, cascading throughout the economy and the land, over time. When big projects were underway, necessity became the driver of innovation, and focused innovation led to successful enterprise. These projects also resulted in continued wealth generation, increased GDP and a higher quality of life for the Canadian population over many generations. Canada’s “big project innovation strategy” applied to the energy sector has the potential of transforming Canada into a true sustainable, environmentally sound energy superpower. Canada is fortunate to have massive supplies of non-renewable and renewable energy assets. Coupled to this opportunity are: a strong banking system — possibly the strongest in the world at the present time — and a sound economy; a highly ranked post-secondary education system which develops students into skilled workers, well-qualified personnel, and greatly-recognized project managers and researchers; world-class engineers with the abilities to develop the next generation of energy technologies and implement big projects; and proven industrial capacity and capability to design, manage, build, commission and deliver large, nation-building projects. Here we present seven of Canada’s next big projects that have the potential to propel Canada towards becoming the world’s first sustainable energy superpower.
Canada should connect existing provincial grids through a new high capacity transmission system. National Grid Canada should connect existing provincial grids through a new high-capacity transmission system. This would enable significant reductions in Canada’s carbon footprint by incorporating distant low-emission power sources like hydroelectric and tidal generating stations when they are retired - and meet new demand. Additionally, this would improve the business case for intermittent renewables such as wind and solar, assist in the management of regional peak loads, release stranded power and thereby reduce power costs in some markets, enhance energy storage capability and provide strategic security advantages through a high capacity transmission backbone.
Adapted from a report and a book prepared by the Canadian Academy of Engineering and edited by Richard J. Marceau and Clement W. Bowman.
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New plants should be built to upgradebitumen from the oil sands to fuels and chemical products. Bitumen The Alberta oil sands contain at least 1.6 trillion barrels of bitumen, of which 300 billion barrels is expected to be recoverable. Production from the oil sands is poised to triple within the next two decades. New plants should be built to upgrade the bitumen from the oil sands to fuels and chemical products, thus capturing more than $60 billionper year in value-added products and commensurate jobs inside Canada. Current plans would see more than 50 per cent of the bitumen upgraded outside Canada. The enormous assets of the oil sands have been one of the foundations for Canada’s energy superpower vision, and Alberta must continue its environmental advances to achieve that goal. Alberta and Ontario should work together to develop and apply new environmentally-advanced upgrading technologies, optimizing the use of available labour and facilities at both the Alberta IndustrialHeartland hydrocarbon processing region and the Sarnia-Lambton Refining and Petrochemical Complex.
Schematic of the proposed Kitimat LNG facility in British Columbia.
Natural Gas
Canada needs to have a national strategy to realize the potential of natural gas and LNG.
Shell Canada’s Scotford upgrader near Fort Saskatchewan, Alta. uses hydrogen addition to upgrade bitumen from the Muskeg River oil sands mine into synthetic crude oils, much of which is sold to the adjacent refinery or to Shell’s Sarnia, Ont. refinery.
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project’ opportunity for liquefied natural gas (LNG), with the first commercial LNG export facilityscheduled to open in Kitimat in 2015, and with three facilities in operation by 2020. Several other countries will be competing for Asian LNG markets. Canada needs to have a national strategy [including an appropriate policy framework] to realize the potential of natural gas and LNG, building on these BC projects.
Apache Canada Ltd./David Dodge, The Pembina Institute
Over the next 20 years, global demand for natural gas for use in electricity generation, heating and transportation is expected to rise dramatically. Natural gas is the world’s cleanest-burning fossil fuel emitting up to 60 percent less CO2 than coal when used for electricity generation and has a key role to play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Canada as well as abroad. China and Japan are both pursuing new supply - China to fuel its massive modernization, and Japan to diversify its fuel supply. British Columbia is developinga ‘big
BC Hydro/Ontario Power Generation Inc.
Hydroelectricity Canada now has 73,000 megawatts of hydroelectric power in service, and another 163,000 megawatts could be developed for a total capacity of 236,000 megawatts. Canada should proceed with major hydroelectric projects to capture part of the country’s untapped hydroelectric power, and in so doing drive down our greenhouse gas emissions. This includes the development of Labrador’s Lower Churchill area; tidal energy in the Bay of Fundy and Ungava Bay; a flood-control infrastructure in the St. Lawrence River basin and the diversion of the major
If Canada led the push to apply nuclearto process-heat applications, this would give our resource industriesa technical and economic edge.
Canada should proceed with major hydroelectric projects to capture part of the country’s untapped hydroelectricpower. rivers of Bell and Waswanipi in Quebec's Matagami region into the Ottawa River; the completion of the northern portion of the La Grande Complex in the Great Whale region near James Bay; and the development of hydroelectricity projects in the western half of Canada including the watersheds of the Mackenzie, Churchill, Thelon, Nelson, Burntwood and Peace Rivers.
The Peace Canyon Dam in the Peace River Canyon, B.C. generates power from the same water that flows through the W.A.C. Bennett Dam 23 kilometres upstream.
The Darlington Nuclear Generating Station, 70 kilometres east of Toronto, produces 3,512 megawatts of power, providing about 20 per cent of Ontario’s electricity.
Nuclear Applying nuclear-generated heat (rather than burning fossil fuel) to bitumen extraction and upgrading from western Canada’s oil sands would strengthen Canada as a sustainable energy superpower by conserving natural gas, improving the carbon emissions profile of the oil sands, and facilitating oil sands industry growth. Various established and new reactor designs are available, and we can anticipate advances within twenty to forty years in new fuel cycles and technologies that can resolve public concerns with early generations of nuclear technology by being extremely safe, proliferation-resistant, and very low-waste. But in such circumstances, to identify the most promising technology paths and to shorten them, an ambitious, multi-stakeholder technology development process is needed to explore these opportunities. Also, if Canada led the push to apply nuclear to process heat applications, this would give our resource industries a technical and economic edge, and add a new branch of nuclear expertise to our existing cluster of technological strengths, which already includes medical diagnosis and treatment, food safety and irradiation, electricity supply, uranium mining and exploration, and materials science.
June 2012 CAnadian Chemical News 17
Gasification Coal is the world’s most abundant and widely distributed fossil fuel - and Canada has more energy in its coal than oil and gas combined. Coal gasification has the unique ability to produce electrical power, hydrogen and high value chemical and pharmaceutical products. Gasification also has the ability to handle diverse feedstocks; to sequester or capture, store and utilize carbon dioxide for other value-added processes; and to capture sulphur and trace metals. Integrated gasification systems, which can process both coal and biomass, could be ideal for a country like Canada, where both resources are economically readily available. To become an energy superpower, Canada could be mastering the efficient utilization of coal resources in a clean manner, leveraging where possible international R&D underway in this area. Providing resources to the research and development of new gasification technologies, and sharing the risk with the private sector to scale up new technologies are essential actions to effectively utilize Canada’s abundant coal resources.
The development of biorefineries could lead to the emergence of a bio-economy in Canada.
Canada could be mastering the efficientutilization of coal resources in a clean manner.
At the Swan Hills Synfuels in-situ coal gasification site in central Alberta, coal is heated to very high temperatures1,400 metres underground. The resultingsyngas is cooled in a closed glycol loop heat exchanger (above) at the surface. The demonstration project constitutes the deepest undergroundcoal gasification ever conducted.
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Biomass resources in Canada are enormous. Approximately10 per cent of the world’s forests, or 450 million hectares, is in Canada. The total agricultural land in Canada is 67.5 million hectares. The Canadian forestry industry continues to seek new markets for its surplus capacity of approximately 30 million cubic metres of lumber due to the recent downturn in the U.S. housing sector. The development of bio-refineries, where bioenergy, bio-chemicals and other bio-products are produced from diverse biomass feedstocks, could lead to the emergence of a bio-economy in Canada. Integrated development options include the conversion of pulp and paper mills into bio-refineries and product diversification for sugar-based and cellulosic ethanol plants, which would maintain functioning economies in less dense population centres.
The book “Canada: Winning as a Sustainable Energy Superpower,” from which portions of this article have been excerpted, is due to be published this summer and is available online now at www.clembowman.info/EnergyPathways.html
Swan Hills Synfuels
Bioenergy
Canadian Society for Chemistry
96th Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition
May 26–30, 2013
Chemistry without borders
QUEBEC CITY
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Quebec, Canada
QA &
Marc Aucoin is perfecting processes for large-scale virus production. But don’t worry, it’s a good thing. By Tyler Irving
ACCN Most people think of viruses as disease agents; how can they be useful? MA Viruses have evolved over millions
of years to be very effective delivery agents of genetic material. That’s really how they can be useful. For example, the idea behind gene therapy is to use viruses to transfer genetic material to a host cell in order to cure a genetic defect or disease. Another aspect of viruses that we can use to our advantage is their specificity. In a lot of cases, viruses ultimately kill cells they infect, but not all cells have the same
20 CAnadian Chemical News
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University of Waterloo / Engineering Research
hemical engineering is all about optimizing production. But what if your production plant isn’t a collection of pipes and reactor vessels, but rather a living cell? What if your product isn’t a molecule, but a virus or virus-like particle? That’s the world in which Marc Aucoin works. The professor of chemical engineering at the University of Waterloo views viruses as both tools to tinker with cellular machinery and as valuable products for vaccines or gene therapy. ACCN spoke with him to find out how chemical engineering applies to viral systems. Marc Aucoin engineers the production systems of viruses and virus-like particles for vaccines and gene therapy.
susceptibility to infection. If a virus was found to target cancer cells, this virus could then be used as a treatment. And that’s obviously very beneficial and something that we would need to produce a lot of. From another point of view, viruses are used as vectors to introduce genes into cell lines that are grown in suspended culture. Those transformed cells would then produce whatever protein you want them to. Much of my work focuses on using viruses to transform insect cells. ACCN Why would you want to do that? MA Historically, engineered E. coli cells have been the main vehicle for producing
industrial quantities of recombinant proteins, such as synthetic human insulin. But bacteria are such simple organisms that they don’t always have the right processing abilities to replicate human proteins exactly. For example, they can’t
Chemical Engineering | viruses do post-translational modifications, like adding sugar molecules onto the outside of the proteins — something that we now know greatly influences the efficacy of the protein as a therapeutic. Insect cells make proteins that are much more similar to what humans would produce. In addition, insect cells grow readily in suspension culture, so we can make lots of them using bioreactors. On top of that, there is a class of viruses — the baculoviruses — that readily infect only insect cells. It turns out to be relatively easy to manipulate a baculovirus to carry a gene of interest. So we have a great mechanism to get insect cells to produce as much of a specific protein as we want. This is called the baculovirus expression vector system, or BEVS. ACCN Can you give us some examples of products made using the BEVS? MA One common product is virus-like particles. I usually say
that these particles smell, feel and taste like a virus, but they’re not a virus because they don’t contain any genetic information. They are used as vaccines against actual viruses. Three years ago, GlaxoSmithKline got approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration to use the BEVS to produce Cervarix, which is a virus-like particle used as a vaccine against the human papilloma virus. This essentially opened the field for others to use BEVS and today there are other products on the way, such as influenza vaccines. But you can still count the number of commercially available, BEVS-derived products on your fingers. If we look a bit further ahead, there is an opportunity with future research to use baculoviruses as gene therapy vectors. ACCN You mean they can infect human cells? MA Not exactly. They are able to enter mammalian cells, but genes can only be expressed if the promoter sequences in front of them are recognized by the host. Because baculoviruses evolved to infect insect cells, human cells don’t recognize the promoter sequences within their genome, so those genes are not expressed and the virus can’t replicate. But what you can do is alter the baculovirus to carry a gene
of interest with a promoter that is recognized by human cells, and that’s what people have started doing. Another future possibility is that you could alter the baculovirus to express proteins found on the outside of other viruses. In that case, the baculovirus itself would elicit an immune response from humans in much the same way viruslike particles do. ACCN What does all this have to do with chemical engineering? MA I see the BEVS as a chemical production system, with
viruses and virus-like particles as the product. As a chemical engineer, I’m interested in the overall conditions of the bioreactor, but I’m also interested in what’s happening at the microscopic level. For me, that means studying how individual cells are infected and transformed by the virus. Part of my program involves trying to alter aspects of the infection cycle in order to maximize the yield. I like to think of it as trying to create an assembly line at a cellular level. ACCN How do you alter the
infection cycle? MA One interesting thing about
baculoviruses is that they have two forms. The budded form is a small, rod-shaped virus that leaves the cell — that’s where the term budded comes from — and is then able to infect other cells. The occluded form is essentially a collection of multiple unbudded viruses within a protein matrix. It is quite stable in the environment. In nature, the occluded form is produced late in the cycle, as the infected insect larva is dying. It remains on the leaf to infect other insects. In cell culture, we don’t need the occluded form, so the first researchers in this field essentially hijacked the promoters for the genes that make the protein matrix of the occluded form. They used those promoters to produce their gene of interest. But again, those occluded form genes are only expressed in the very late stages of infection. Since then, a number of different promoters have been identified that are expressed at earlier stages of the infection cycle. By using these, you can actually control both the extent of
JUne 2012 CAnadian Chemical News 21
expression and the timing of when your protein products are produced. ACCN Why is it important to be able to do that? MA If you have multiple proteins in your virus-like particle,
and they’re all being produced late in the cycle, you’re essentially competing for cell resources to produce them. You might get a better overall production by staggering when proteins are made, thereby allowing the cell to focus all its resources on producing proteins one at a time, as opposed to all at once. For example, one of the systems that we’re currently studying is an influenza virus-like particle, which consists of three proteins: hemagglutinin, neuraminidase, and a matrix protein. Generally, the hemagglutinin and neuraminidase end up in the cell membrane, and the matrix protein gets coated with these on its way out of the cell. We believe that if we express the hemagglutinin or the neuraminidase early, we can have the cell ready for expression of the matrix protein later on. By staggering the expression of these proteins in time, we believe we will get a better yield. ACCN Are there other ways you can optimize yields? MA Another focus of our lab is to study what metabolites
the cells are using either when they are growing or at various stages of the infection cycle. If we understood exactly what they needed and when, we could tailor the nutrients available to the cells at different periods of time. It’s a bit like sport drinks with different formulations for both before and after your activity. By gaining a better understanding of the overall system, we should be able to both improve yields and reduce costs. Another improvement could be made in downstream processing, that is, recovering the product from the broth. This area is not necessarily treated with as much respect as it should be, but it accounts for a significant portion of the cost of any bioproduct. Typically, after you finish the culture you do a centrifugation step to get rid of the cells and recover your product in the liquid supernatant. Then you pass that through a series of chromatography columns to bind your product and separate it from any impurities. Still, each additional step adds an additional expense to your process. One thing we’re investigating is the use of membrane chromatography. The idea is that instead
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of pushing material through a filter or packed bed, you’re flowing across a membrane. In that case, you don’t necessarily have to remove the cells ahead of time, because the charged membrane can selectively pick up only the product — in this case, the virus-like particle you want. ACCN Do people get confused about whether
you’re a biologist or a chemical engineer? MA All the time. But the truth is, you cannot do one
without the other. If your goal is to produce a lot of virus or virus-like particles, you can’t exclude the fundamental concepts that chemical engineers know. You also need to fully appreciate what you’re working with in terms of the biology. They are intimately linked, and there is a true need to understand both sides. In my lab, I have a 50-50 mix of biologists and chemical engineers, and when you come out of my lab you are well versed in both. It’s this mix that actually makes a perfect marriage. ACCN Is there a breakthrough that would allow for significantadvances in your field? MA What would be extraordinary is if we could actually
measure everything at the single cell level. There are single cell measurements we can do now, but a lot of our techniques are destructive so we can’t, for example, follow a single cell through the infection cycle. If we could do that, I think we would find out a lot more. ACCN What drives you to study this field? MA First, viruses are cool. Second, I truly believe one of the
reasons why we live so much longer these days is because of medical intervention — either through diagnosis or prevention — and vaccination is one of these interventions. But I was at a conference in South America just recently, and the problems surrounding access to therapeutics because of cost was front and centre. We sometimes forget that as Canadians we probably have the best access to medical treatments. If there’s anything that we can do as chemical engineers that would help make these therapies and treatments available to as many people as possible, then I want to be involved in that work. I’m not going to create a new therapy or a new drug, but we can make a big difference in how these products are made.
www.thecompliancecentre.com/accn
Still the bulwark of our hand-held electronic toys, lithium-ion batteries are getting big enough to take centre stage in renewable power grids By Tim Lougheed
L
ike an invading virus, millions upon millions of portable phones have colonized every corner of our planet within a very few decades. Yet this remarkable expansion would not have been feasible without a safe, reliable, and durable source of power for these devices. In fact, the spread of mobile electronics would have been nowhere near as successful and complete without the capabilities provided by the lithium-ion battery. While hints of our earliest attempts to package electricity have been found in Persian artifacts that could be 2,000 years old, it was only in the 20th century that batteries emerged as a safe, convenient way of confining charge in a truly portable way. And it was not until the 1990s that lithium emerged as the material of choice for this application. The lightest of all metals on the periodic table, this element’s low density offers an outstanding ratio of electrochemical potential to weight. It also lends itself to intercalation, whereby lithium ions become embedded in the porous material of positive and negative electrodes. The reversibility of this process is crucial to recharging a battery, and lithium emerged as the most efficient material for doing so with minimal decomposition of the electrolytes that convey charges between electrodes. The practical result has become all too familiar: operate a device like a phone until the battery has become fully discharged, then run external electrical current into the battery until all of the lost energy has been replaced. Depending on the specific design and use of the system, this cycle might be repeated thousands of times over the course of years, a prospect without precedent in the history of battery technology. It smacks of the holy grail associated with perpetual motion devices, and it comes with some of the same small-but-steady losses in capability that regularly foil such inventions. “Things can easily go wrong,” says Isobel Davidson, a researcher with the National Research Council’s Energy, Mining, and Environment Portfolio. Davidson has spent much of her career exploring the shortcomings of lithiumion batteries, along with innovations that could enable this technology to become even more widely used. Contrary to the concerns of some commodity speculators, lithium is not the most expensive component within these batteries, nor is it in particularly short supply. What defines the characteristics of these products, and
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drives up their prices, are proprietary concoctions of materials integrated with lithium to take advantage of its electrochemical properties. “The chemistry changes most dramatically in designing the battery for the application,” she explains. “Lithium ion batteries used for one application such as cell phones do not differ all that much in their chemistry or size. However, a lithium ion battery used for a power tool will have a different chemistry from those used for laptops or for cell phones. The electrodes are each mixtures of a number of components — the active materials, a conductivity enhancer, and some sort of polymeric binder.” The makeup of separators and binders becomes important, since they make it possible to attach the other parts and physically build the battery. A binder, for example, must not interfere with the action of the electrolyte, nor can it be affected by the surrounding voltage. The emergence of new types of separators made it possible for smaller batteries to safely sustain higher power levels, opening up the market for cordless power tools. For their part, Davidson’s group at NRC regards electrolytes as an area
ChemisTRy | BAtterIes
eleCtrovAyA InC.
Mississauga, ont.-based electrovaya Inc. delivers a 1.5 MWh lithium-ion battery-based energy storage system to an electric utility company in flagstaff, Arizona last february. the system, which has the same capacity of roughly 300,000 cell phone batteries, will provide energy storage for a pilot program that will test how to best integrate things like solar power into the grid.
where significant progress can still be made. While most battery manufacturers employ highly flammable organic carbonates for this purpose, she and her colleagues have been experimenting with salts known as ionic liquids. “They are mostly organic materials, but they have very low volatility, and hence low fire risk. In addition, they often have a very good electrochemical voltage window,” she says. However, they need to be liquid at the range of temperatures for most human-operated equipment, from -30C to +60C, a requirement that continues to pose a significant obstacle. She also points to additives that can improve the safety of batteries by reducing their combustibility. Any puncture in the shell of a lithium ion battery will allow interaction with the air and can yield a dramatic flare. “Lithium intercalated into the anode reacts exothermically with both the air and with moisture,” she says. “The reaction is most vigorous with a charged cell.” Manufacturers therefore devise strategies to minimize this reaction, particularly for larger scale applications that situate a number of batteries in close proximity, so that a fire in one could set off the rest. Flame retardants are often added to the electrolytes. Manufacturers are similarly eager to minimize the environmental impact of batteries. While a polymer binder such as polyvinyl difluoride is employed using the highly toxic solvent N-methyl pyrrolidone, Davidson foresees the use of
water-based binders based on cellulose. Most of the negative electrodes found in lithium-ion batteries are based on carboxymethyl cellulose. The hazards posed by the small batteries found in cell phones may not seem daunting, although Davidson strongly recommends that even these should be treated with a great deal of respect. Adventurous YouTube videographers have deliberately opened up seemingly modest sized lithium ion batteries, an act that can provide more than enough colourful evidence of fire, sparks, minor explosions, and off-gassing to strike caution into the most curious of hearts. These small scale displays set the tone for the planning of the most ambitious lithium ion battery installations, which are expected to become an essential adjunct to wind and solar electricity generating stations. It is all too obvious that these sites do not function when the air is calm and the sun is down, nor is the power they produce necessarily needed exactly when the wind is blowing strongly or the sun shining brightly. If these systems are to contribute effectively to the existing power grid, they must be able to store large amounts of electricity until the grid is ready to receive it. With that goal in mind, power utilities with a stake in renewable energy have started to invest in lithium battery arrays the size of a shipping container. One of North America’s largest was built by Mississauga, Ont.-based Electrovaya, which earlier this year began a two-year pilot test at an electrical distribution
june 2012 CAnAdiAn ChemiCAl news
25
substation in Flagstaff, Arizona. The device can hold 1.5 megawatt-hours of energy; that would be the equivalent of 300,000 cell phone batteries, each of which can hold three watt-hours. Eventually, the unit will be tied directly to a 500 kilowatt solar farm, so that the electricity generated there throughout the day can be made available during the peak demand hours, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Even larger installations are under way elsewhere. A 32-megawatt lithium-ion battery farm came on line in West Virginia near the end of 2011, and China has already commissioned a 36-megawatt installation. The cost of this major infrastructure can only be justified if the batteries will continue to perform for a long time to come, according to Jeff Dahn, a chemist at Dalhousie University. He was among the first to begin developing this technology more than two decades ago, and
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Natural Resources Canada
Isobel Davidson poses with a Chevy Volt from the Canadian government fleet. The Volt runs on a lithium-ion battery that is six feet long and weighs just under 400 pounds.
he has watched the expectations for this technology grow with its capabilities. Smart phones with bright, busy LED screens can now run for a full working day on a single battery charge, although Dahn credits that to lower power consumption of the latest hardware, as well as better storage ability of the latest batteries. “The energy density of the battery has improved by about 2.5 times since 1991, and the power consumption of the devices has dropped dramatically,” he says, suggesting a comparison between the old phones and the new, omitting the latter’s energy-hungry Web-surfing applications. “If an old 1991 phone were powered by today’s batteries, that phone would only last 2.5 times longer. But a cell phone with just dial and talk capabilities made with today’s electronics would probably run for more than a month with 1991 lithium-ion batteries.” As batteries grow big enough to meet the needs of power utilities, these customers will have even higher expectations, placing the onus on battery manufacturers to guarantee ongoing improvement in the longevity and performance of their products. “In the end, if you want batteries to last a decade — or three decades — you come down to this bottleneck about testing,” he says. “Testing takes too darn long. As the batteries get better and better, the tests get longer and longer. You’ve got to find some way to find out in a few weeks whether you’ve made an improvement on a battery that’s already pretty good.” Dahn has found a way of short-cutting this process by detecting very minor losses of charge that occur between charging cycles. These losses are what will eventually reduce the battery’s capacity over the course of months or years; rather than waiting that long to identify this reduction, a new testing regime can accurately predict the drop in just a few weeks. One piece of equipment in Dahn’s Halifax laboratory is the High Precision Charger that carries out this measurement, which is known as coulombic efficiency. This innovation promises to complement the efforts of researchers around the world who are looking for ways to hone the design of lithium ion batteries. Much of this work amounts to experimentation with new materials, including various metals, with the goal of increasing charge speed, energy density, or the overall stability of the storage platform. The application of nanotechnology is among the more recent innovations. A group at the University of Waterloo is using carbon nanoparticles that interact with sulfur molecules to improve the efficiency of lithium ion storage. Dahn argues that battery research is moving in many different directions, some of which could yield little progress, although he does not discount the possibility of surprising results that could lead to a major technical leap. “So far there haven’t been any home runs hit, but there may well be.”
Proshots Event Photography/Luke Andersson (top two)
News from the Chemical Institute of Canada and its three Constituent Societies | Society news
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Things to Know
June 21, 2012
The CIC now offers online payment
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options. As of June you will be able to
Biochemicals Conference
pay for and access CIC services on our
Toronto, Ont.
website. All CIC courses, conferences,
www.bioautocouncil.com August 25—29, 2012 20th International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering (CHISA 2012)
events, and subscriptions can now be purchased at www.cheminst.ca. When you pay online you will get an immediate transaction confirmation and CIC
Prague, Czech Republic
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ter. More electronic services, including award submissions, are expected to be
August 28—30, 2012
available this summer.
Oilsands 2012 Conference Edmonton, Alta.
The deadline for award nomi-
www.ualberta.ca/OILSANDS2012
nations for the CIC, CSC and
September 16—21, 2012 15th International Biotechnology Symposium and Exhibition Daegu, Korea www.ibs2012.org
CGCEN awards is July 3. Find out how to nominate someone at www.cheminst.ca/awards. The 2011 audited financial statements for the CIC, CSC, CSChE, CSCT,
October 14—17, 2012 62nd Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference (CSChE 2012) Vancouver, B.C. www.csche2012.ca November 12—14, 2012 Interamerican Congress of Chemical Engineering Montevideo, Uruguay www.aiquruguay.org/congreso May 27—29, 2013 3rd Climate Change Technology Conference Montreal, Que. www.cctc2013.ca August 18—23, 2013 9th World Congress of Chemical Engineering (WCCE9) Coex, Seoul, Korea www.wcce9.org
Chemical Education Fund and Gendron Fund are now available online at
A group of young job-seekers visit the CIC www.cheminst.ca. booth at the National Job Fair and Training Expo held in Toronto in April (TOP). Nearly 12,000 attendees toured the 200-plus You can check out photos from the booths at the event i ncluding fifteen 95th Canadian Chemistry Conference chemical companies. The CIC booth was and Exhibition held in Calgary in May co-hosted by the Toronto CIC Local Secby clicking on the banner at the top of tion. • On March 29, the Hyatt Regency hotel in downtown Toronto was abuzz www.csc2012.ca. as over 100 people gathered for the annual awards dinner for top achievers in the chemical sciences from industry and academia (MIDDLE). For the second year in a row, the dinner - which is hosted jointly by the Society of the Chemical Industry and the CIC - was preceded by an afternoon seminar series on “Clean, Green and Sustainable Chemistry.” Later, attendees were treated to a keynote lecture by International Award winner John van Leeuwen of EcoSynthetix. Van Leeuwen's message for the next generation: the status quo is not an option, and Canada has the potential to be a world leader in sustainable chemistry. • At the World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology & Bioprocessing in Orlando this spring, Brent Erickson, Executive Vice President of Washington, D.C.-based Biotechnology Industry Organization and Roland Andersson, CIC Executive Director discuss strategies on next year’s Congress (BOTTOM), which will take place in Montreal June 16-19, 2013. Canada had a substantial presence in Orlando this year; 110 out of 900 attendees and nine out of 35 exhibitors were Canadian. The CIC has been a supporting organization of these meetings since 2006 and members save 20 per cent on registration.
june 2012 CAnadian Chemical News 27
Society news
John Bianchini was named Chief Executive Officer of Hatch Engineering in April. Hatch is one of the world’s biggest engineering, procurement and construction management firms serving the metals, energy and infrastructure sector.
Artistic interpretations of each of the elements comprise an eight metre by five metre mural of the periodic table adorning a foyer wall at the University of Waterloo. Tiles submitted from every Canadian province and territory, 20 U.S. States and 14 other countries make up the compilation. The project was funded in part by the CIC’s Chemical Education Fund during 2011, the International Year of Chemistry. Detail: Breanna Paige Stafford and Elaine Riegel, from Vilas School, Vilas, Colorado, submitted the tile for rhodium. The single rose was inspired by the Greek root of the element’s name, meaning rose, and by the metal’s single isotope.
The Dalhousie Research in Energy, Advanced Materials and Sustainability (DREAMS) program received an Award for Exemplary Work in the Incorporation of Sustainability into Chemistry Education from the American Chemical Society this spring. DREAMS is an interdisciplinary program for chemistry, physics and engineering students that draws top-
chemical education fund
level researchers from across Canada.
International chemical education conference coming to Toronto
Mark MacLachlan of the University of
Some 500 chemical science educators from around the world are expected to gather in Toronto in July 2014 thanks to a successful bid by the University of Toronto to host the 23rd IUPAC International Conference on Chemical Education. The bid, presented to the IUPAC Committee on Chemical Education last July in San Juan, Puerto Rico, proffered Toronto’s metropolitan and multicultural charms, as well as the organizing committee’s past experience in hosting the Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition, to seal the deal. Delegates are expected to be largely post-secondary instructors, although considerable effort will be made to involve high school chemistry teachers. Under the conference theme “Developing Learning Communities in the Chemical Sciences,” symposia planned to date include “Communicating Across the Educational Levels,” “Outreach to the Lay Community,” “International Student Learning Communities,” “Technological Support of Chemistry Learning and Learning Communities,” “Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning,” and “Greening Attitudes in Chemistry Education.” The conference will be sponsored in part by the CIC’s Chemical Education Fund. “We’re all very excited about bringing this conference to Canada for the first time,” says Judith Poë, co-chair of the event. “Of course now we have to get down to the work of it.”
British Columbia Department of Chemistry is one of six winners of this year’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada's E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship. The fellowships, which were announced in March, include a research grant of up to $250,000 over two years. The host university also receives up to $90,000 a year to fund a replacement for the fellow’s teaching and administrative duties during the course of the fellowship. Suning Wang of Queen’s University Department of Chemistry is one of seven winners of the 2012 Killam Research Fellowships awarded by the Canada Council for the Arts. The fellowships, which were announced in February, provide $70,000 a year for two years.
Find more news from the CIC at accn.ca/societynews. Is there something going on that you think we should write up for this section? Write to us at magazine@accn.ca and use the subject heading “Society News.”
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Neil Trotter
Grapevine
Society news partnerships
Engineers partner with oilsands network The CSChE entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Canadian Oilsands Network for Research and Development (CONRAD) in May. The MOU represents a statement of “goodwill and intent” to “strengthen the friendship and cooperation between the two organizations … in the field of chemical engineering as it relates to oilsands research and development.” The agreement lists some specific areas of cooperation such as the spread of best practices, exchange of information, and collaboration in communicating Process Safety Management standards. “This agreement is an important step forward for chemical engineers in Canada,” says CIC Executive Director Roland Andersson. “It recognizes how integral their profession is to the development of one of the country’s most important energy assets.”
Awards
2012 Green Chemistry and Engineering Awards announced The Canadian Green Chemistry and Engineering Network (CGCEN), a network of the CIC, announced its 2012 award winners in May. Philip Jessop of Queen’s University won the Canadian Green Chemistry and Engineering Award for an individual for his research in Co2 and H2 chemistry. Paul A. Charpentier of Western University won the Ontario Green Chemistry and Engineering Award for an individual for his research into new nanomaterials designed for use in solar devices, greener catalysis and biomedicine. Finally, the Xerox Research Centre of Canada (XRCC) won the Ontario Green Chemistry and Engineering Award for an organization, for innovations in the areas of greener materials and processes that have been instrumental in reducing energy consumption and waste in both the manufacturing of consumables and printing.
june 2012 CAnadian Chemical News 29
Chemfusion
From medicine to mania
I
n the 18th century gin mania in England reached epidemic proportions. Between 1715 and 1750 there were more deaths than births in London, with the greatest mortality among children. Many of these deaths were due to fetal alcohol syndrome as unhappy mothers-to-be sought solace in gin. And u nhappiness was the rule, not the exception, and it wasn’t limited to pregnant women. The mideighteenth century was a brutal era, rife with robbery, murder and venereal disease. Illness due to a lack of clean water and food was rampant; smoke spewing from the quickly multiplying factories that ushered in the Industrial Revolution polluted the air. But gin was cheap and provided at least temporary escape from the abject poverty, the filth and hopelessness of the environment. It was the ascension of the Dutchman, William of Orange, to the British throne in 1688 that marked the beginning of the gin craze. William banned the importing of French wines and spirits and encouraged the distillation of spirits from home-grown grain. Consumption of gin skyrocketed. So did drunkenness and social disorder. The Gin Act of 1736 attempted to muzzle the run-away gin production by raising taxes on distilled spirits and making the sale of gin in quantities under two gallons illegal. Distillers also had to take out a fifty pound license. All this did was cause riots in the streets,
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lead to prison populations bursting with offenders to the Act and stimulate a black market in gin. As cheap gin flowed unabated, crime increased, men were rendered impotent, women ceased to care for their children, suicide rates jumped, people sold their possessions to satisfy their thirst for perpetual drunkenness. All of this is depicted in William Hogarth’s famous 1751 satirical engraving Gin Lane. There is the carpenter pawning the tools of his trade for gin, the emaciated dying man still clutching his glass of gin, the neglected infant whose mother is being placed in a coffin, the woman forcing gin into the mouth of an infant to keep it quiet, the schoolgirls drinking gin, a barber who has just hanged himself, and the dominant figure of a woman in a drunken stupor whose child, disfigured by fetal alcohol syndrome, is falling to his death. Authorities passed the second Gin Act in 1751 forcing distillers to sell only to licensed retailers. No longer could gin be purchased from every corner grocer, tobacconist, apothecary, barber or jail keeper. Finally the gin mania began to fade. While gin ruined many lives in the eighteenth century, its original purpose was to save lives. It was developed in 1650 by Franciscus Sylvius, a professor of medicine at the State University of Leyden in Holland. Juniper berries already had a folkloric history as a remedy for gout and urinary
By Joe Schwarcz
tract problems such as urine retention. Sylvius’ idea was to produce a diuretic by distilling juniper berries with spirits derived from fermented barley. Gin is incredibly complex chemically, containing hundreds of compounds in very small doses. Some of these, terpinen-4-ol, for example, have potential biological effects, such as reducing inflammation or stimulating the kidney’s rate of filtration. But there is too little present in gin to have any such effect. While there is no scientific evidence that gin has any medicinal benefit, one piece of folklore has persisted. That’s the use of gin-soaked raisins to treat arthritis. The common recipe is to take a box of golden raisins, soak them in a few pints of gin for a few weeks until it evaporates and then eat nine a day. Various explanations have been forwarded as to why this works, usually speculating about anti-inflammatory compounds in juniper berries or in the raisins. Pretty far-fetched speculation given the tiny amounts of these compounds present. My bet is that it’s the pints of gin that does it. And they do it by the same mechanism with which they can treat a cold. Here it is: When you have a cold, place a hat on the bedpost and start drinking gin. When you see two hats, the cold will be gone. Or at least you’ll forget about it. Joe Schwarcz is the director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society. Read his blog at chemicallyspeaking.com.
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Advance your professional knowledge and further your career Risk Assessment Course Process Safety Course September 19-20, 2012 September 17-18, 2012 Toronto, Ont. Toronto, Ont. Risk Concepts • Integrated Risk Management • Risk Management Process • Techniques for Risk Analysis • Qualitative Techniques: Hazard Identification with Hands-on Applications • Index Methods • SVA, LOPA • Quantitative Techniques • Fault and Event Trees • Fire, Explosion, Dispersion Modeling • Damage/Vulnerability Modeling • Risk Estimation • Risk Presentation • Risk Evaluation and Decision-Making • Risk Cost Benefit Analysis • Process Safety Management with reference to US OSHA PSM Regulations • Emergency Management with Reference to Environment Canada Legislation • Land Use Planning • Risk Monitoring • Stakeholder Participation
Accident Theory and Model • Loss of Containment • Physical and Process Hazards • Runaway Reactions • Fire • Explosion • Toxic Exposure • Dust • Equipment Failure • Human Factors Inherently Safer Designs • Engineering Practices • Plant and Equipment Layout • Facility Siting • Relief and Blowdown • Circuit Isolation • Electrical Area Classification • Instrumentation and Safety Instrumented Systems • Fire Protection • Process Safety Management • Leadership and Culture • Hazard Assessment and Risk Analysis • Operating Procedures and Training • Management of Change • Pre-Startup Safety Review • Mechanical Integrity • Emergency Preparedness • Management Review and Continuous Improvement
Course outline and registration at
www.cheminst.ca/profdev Continuing Professional Development presented by the Chemical Institute of Canada (CIC) and the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering (CSChE).
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