Grant: Engage Grants Program

TRCC Canada would like to manufacture carpets and other materials using recycled fibers. The second partnerfor this project is Tapis Venture, where recycled fibers are a byproduct available in large quantities. In order tohelp limiting disposal of carpets to landfills and achieve competitive production costs, recycling is an avenue ofinterest. One of the main challenges linked to this opportunity is the presence of microorganisms in such fibers.Some of these microbes (bacteria, fungi) can have deleterious impact on human health, severely limiting thesales of such carpets for a number of potential customers. In this preliminary project, the UQTR researchgroup will grow, purify and identify the various population of microorganisms of recycled material provided byTRCC and Tapis Venture. Our group has a track record of success in this area, having screened the microfloraof various environmental samples in the past, and having registered several new bacteria and fungi in Genbank.With such know-how, UQTR will complement the high level of expertise in material engineering of TRCCofficers. On the basis of such analysis, TRCC will design a strategy for controlling and ensuring the innocuityof recycled fiber products. This would be the subject of a larger collaborative R&D effort, probably starting inearly 2015. With this strategy, TRCC intends to expand its presence into in new market sectors, and contributeto protecting the environment.