Grant: Extend Innovation Enhancement Grants

The NSERC Extend Innovation Enhancement initiative "Green Chemistry for the Valorization of Resource Industry By-Products" is designed to expand and consolidate NAIT's applied research capacity for the benefit of companies developing technologies to transform waste materials from the provincial resource sectors into chemicals for use in the energy and natural gas sectors. These chemicals will displace fossil-derived equivalents, reduce energy consumption at the natural gas extraction and processing sites and divert residual materials and waste streams from the landfill while creating new market opportunities. The initiative will eliminate a major barrier to the utilization of these by-products by carrying out in-depth physical, chemical and mineralogical characterization. The program will generate practical knowledge on how to transform these materials into chemicals, placing special focus on the production of materials for environmental applications in the energy sector. The outcome of this work will make lasting impacts in Canada, supporting the early adoption of chemicals that will lower the environmental footprint of the oil and natural gas industry while reducing operating costs.The NAIT research team will mentor students, offer seasonal employment, and add to NAIT's curricula in chemical technology; petroleum, geotechnical and chemical engineering; nanotechnology; and biological technologies programs. Knowledge dissemination, beyond the NAIT community, to industry groups, government representatives, and First Nations peoples will also be a major priority of the initiative. Dissemination of the results and outcomes of the research will support the rapid adoption of new technologies that will improve the resource sectors' economic and environmental performances in Canada.