Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

This grant supports equipment for a new laboratory in UBC's Pulp and Paper Centre for research on nanoparticle suspensions and microfluidics with applications to pulp and paper and beyond. The equipment purchased through this grant will allow characterizing the size distribution of particles in the range of 0.6 nm to 6 µm, and it will allow determining the zeta potential of particles suspended in aqueous and in non-aqueous media, which relates to the suspension stability. The equipment also includes a microscope, camera, and flow control equipment to support several ongoing and planned microfluidics projects, most of which deal with suspension transport in microfluidic systems. The particle characterization equipment is necessary for several research programs at UBC in the areas of pulp and paper processing, environmental monitoring, biomedical engineering, and in pharmaceutical sciences. It will support the development of sensing technology for structural health monitoring of buildings and other infrastructure such as bridges and the development of particulate matter sensors for air quality monitoring. This tool will also support research on biocompatible surfaces for biomedical devices such as implants, the development of advanced drug delivery vehicles, as well as new methods to isolate marine and soil microbes. The microflow characterization equipment is necessary for microfluidics research such as the investigation of transport and deposition of colloids in microfluidic environments and the development of new technology to characterize pulp fibres.