Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 1

Whitefox Technologies Canada Ltd. (Whitefox) will work with SAIT Polytechnic for the first time on a project to design an efficient hollow fiber production system which will be developed, built and implemented in Alberta. Whitefox focuses on developing membrane modules and integrating these into industrial processes. The company began developing its know-how by integrating existing membrane technology into newly designed processes. Whitefox focuses on designing and constructing processes for ethanol dehydration and has provided bio-ethanol facilities in Germany, Latvia, Canada and the US. Whitefox currently concentrates on improving its ethanol dehydration technology and expanding its research activities towards gas separations and particularly water purification processes. Water purification remains one of the most important environmental concerns in Alberta. The Canadian oil industry is very much aware of the need to develop efficient and effective methods for cleaning and recovering industrial water used in oil production especially given the large volume of water involved in production and the increasing number of tailings ponds. Water treatment processing during petroleum operations requires tolerance to high temperature, high pressure, and abrasive conditions as well as gas separation and ethanol dehydration processes. Whitefox has developed a polymer portfolio which satisfies the needs of current processing conditions. The company targets replacing high cost inorganic materials with high performance hollow fiber polymer membranes. This project focuses on developing high performance membrane separation systems to treat the water used in oil production processes, which in turn will help reduce the amount of fresh water used. This pre-treatment process is intended significantly increase the water recycle rates in oil production facilities. The focus will be on developing a system which is cost effective and easily integrated into existing plants.