Climate Change Fighting Material Research
Innovative materials are key to ensure achieving the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets by 2050. Climate Positive Energy has supported various projects that aim at developing novel materials for energy storage, clean energy and circular economy.
Accelerated discovery of battery materials using ML-predicted projected density of states Ihor is currently a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences. After completing his honours B.Sc. degree in Physics at the Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv, Ihor joined Clean Energy Lab at the University of Toronto, where he works under the supervision of Professor Oleksandr Voznyy. Ihor’s research focuses on accelerating the discovery of materials for… Read More
Active, fluidic windows for energy savings, load management and enhanced daylighting on U of T campus Designing active, fluidic windows modelled after systems found in nature to allow for dynamic control of transmission, absorption and scattering of light. This can save 75% on heating energy, 20% on electric lighting energy, and 43% on total operational energy compared to the best available electrochromic technology. Read More- AI Driven Catalyst Research “I am a postdoctoral fellow in the Sargent Group at the University of Toronto. I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Mining and Materials Engineering at McGill University with studies focused on two-dimensional materials and single-atom catalysts using density functional theory. My current research interests are data-driven high-throughput materials screening, mechanistic study related to electrocatalytic reactions using computational electrochemistry… Read More
- Catalytic Synthesis of Sustainable Chemicals: Reaction Exploration Over the past decade, fossil-based feedstocks have contributed to 48 Gt CO2 equivalents of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and increased atmospheric CO2 concentration by over 2 ppm per year. The replacement of fossil-based feedstocks would definitely disrupt and transform the current paradigm in fuel and chemical production, paving the way for ultimate sustainability. For this reason, access to reliable, renewable… Read More
- Chemical Recycling of Consumer Plastics by Visible Light-Mediated Photocatalytic Process Harrison’s research is on chemical recycling of consumer plastics by light-mediated photocatalytic processes. Read More
- Converting Tea Waste to Electrodes for Energy Storage This summer, I will be working on a project to develop activated carbon materials for electrochemical capacitors made from locally available biomass waste, particularly waste tea leaves. The aim is to design a process that will create a material with optimal pore structure for efficient energy storage while remaining affordable and sustainable. Read More
- Fertilizer and Plastics Precursor, Greenhouse Gas-Free, using Air and Sunlight Designing an effective, greenhouse gas-neutral process for ammonia production that requires only a small energy input, which can conveniently come from sunlight. Read More
- Harnessing More Solar Energy with Green Chemistry: The Sustainable Design of Hybrid Organic Materials for Next-Generation Organic Solar Cells This research focuses on the development of new organic molecules (coloured dyes, to be specific) with electron-conducting properties (i.e. semiconducting) for applications in organic solar cells (i.e., devices that transform sunlight into electricity) and in energy-efficient, organic light-emitting diodes (i.e., devices that convert electricity into light). Rather than focusing on the traditional inorganic-based devices, Nina focuses on the organic counterpart… Read More
- Manufacturing Unnatural and D-Amino Acids using Green and Recyclable Chemistry Developing a general and modular method for the synthesis of unnatural and D-amino acids which, when compared to existing methods, allows the generation of a greater diversity of unnatural amino acids at a low cost using recyclable chemicals that minimize pharmaceutical pollution. Read More
- Photothermal ice nucleation inhibiting coating for improved clean energy equity Yizhi’s research is on photothermal ice nucleation inhibiting coatings for improved clean energy equity. Read More
- Pi-conjugated polymers with radical pendant group for battery usage Organic materials have emerged as promising candidates for lithium-ion batteries because of their low cost, simple synthesis, and sustainable nature. The purpose of this research is to combine the beneficial aspects of both conductive polymers and radical groups to create a new class of materials that have both high conductivity and high capacity. The polymers will contain a conjugated backbone… Read More
- Redox-active polyethers for solution-based electrochemical carbon capture “In conventional carbon capture systems, a nucleophilic sorbent binds CO2 and must be regenerated through a pressure or temperature swing. By contrast, emerging electrochemical methods achieve the capture and release of CO2 through redox-active mediators whose nucleophilicity or basicity can be enabled/disabled via electrochemical swings. Through CPE’s Climate Solutions Scholarship, I will work on the design, synthesis, and evaluation of… Read More
- Release of Microplastic Fibres From Washing Textiles Microplastics in our clothing is responsible for 35% of microplastics in aquatic systems. The goal of the project is to find coatings or material changes would minimize the release of microplastics while washing. Read More
