Jay Werber

Jay Werber

Jay Werber

Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry

FASE

Research Focus: Waste and Circular Economy

Contact: jay.werber@utoronto.ca

View Bio: https://chem-eng.utoronto.ca/faculty-staff/faculty-members/jay-werber

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Research Projects

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Kickstarting the eMining Consortium

The mining industry relies on decades-old technologies that generate large amounts of waste, release CO2 emissions, and consume significant quantities of chemical feedstocks. As demand for critical minerals increases to support the global energy transition, minimizing these environmental impacts has become crucial, and electrochemical approaches offer a sustainable alternative, using renewable energy to enable circular economy principles through waste recycling and chemical production. However, key technological barriers have hindered commercial adoption. U of T researchers are addressing these challenges to bring electrochemistry to industrial implementation. This includes energy-efficient salt-splitting electrolyzers, impurity- tolerant membranes, and iron-removal electrolyzers. The eMining consortium aims to electrify the mining industry by advancing electrochemical technologies for critical mineral processing, uniting U of T expertise to drive industry-focused research inside U of T labs, with possible additions as the initiative progresses

Transport of Medium Chain Fatty Acids through Rubbery Polymer Film

Wastewater treatment plants currently produce biogas as a byproduct – a low value greenhouse gas (GHG). Abbas’s work, entitled “Transport of Medium Chain Fatty Acids Through Rubbery Polymer Films,” is part of a collaboration between the Advanced Membrane and Microbiome Engineering labs to replace biogas with bio-sourced medium chain fatty acids (MCFAs). MCFAs are valuable chemicals, currently produced unsustainably from palm oil, and their production would increase the economic viability of wastewater treatment operations. Abbas’s role in the project is to assess the impact of polymer chemistry on the separation of MCFAs. He synthesizes films of polydimethylsiloxane and custom polyacrylates, followed by testing MCFA transport in diffusion cells and quantifying permeate concentrations using GC/MS.