Advanced environmental and energy material processing

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The proposed research program aims to accelerate discovery in the area of "advanced environmental and energy material processing" with the ultimate goal of developing new generation innovative, but cost-effective and scalable, environmental and solar energy conversion and storage technologies for a green and sustainable future. This is approached via the innovative integration of aqueous process engineering and nanomaterial principles. There are two thrusts in the proposed research program. The first thrust is the development of altogether new environmental technologies for the immobilization/elimination of toxic pollutants (e.g. As and Se) from industrial effluents via the engineering of core-shell or multi-functional nanocomposite structures. The second thrust of this program is focusing on fabrication (aqueous synthesis and electrophoretic deposition) of nanostructured mesoporous electrode films for either dye-sensitized solar energy conversion or lithium-ion energy storage applications. The underlying unifying theme of the proposed research is the solution synthesis and deposition/processing of nanocrystalline particulates. Nanostructured materials offer superior functionalities as electrodes both in photovoltaics and energy storage systems but further improvement in their performance and fabrication are needed. Development of high throughput low temperature fabrication processes as proposed here has the potential to lead to cost reduction and technological breakthroughs. The proposed research activities under this program are at the forefront of current global advanced environmental and energy material research efforts hence constitute a fertile ground for cutting-edge training. In total up to 20 highly qualified young researchers will be involved with this program over its five-year duration. Finally environmental and energy technologies are of strategic importance to Canada making the proposed research program highly timely and relevant.