Grant: Applied Research Tools and Instruments Grants

The Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) is requesting funding for chemical analysis laboratory equipment that will be used and shared by the Environmental Technologies (ET) research group and the Centre for Energy Research and Clean Unconventional Technology Solutions (CERCUTS), two of six research areas in the Applied Research and Innovation Services (ARIS) department. Established in 2008, the ET group leads applied research in clean technology development associated with energy and the environment through the development of solutions for the reduction of industrial impacts to air, soil and water. CERCUTS is led by SAIT's NSERC Industrial Research Chair for Colleges (IRCC) in Oil Sands In Situ Steam Generation, the goal of which is to address barriers to achieving high energy efficiency, enhanced steam quality and water recycle, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions during in-situ oil sands production. CERCUTS is focused on creating environmentally sound, reliable, secure and highly efficient clean energy solutions with the integration of unconventional and alternative energy. Together, ET and CERCUTS employ 18 people full-time with credentials ranging from diploma through to PhD, and specializations in chemical laboratory technology, chemical engineering, environmental engineering, process piping drafting, and industrial instrumentation. The requested funds will be used to purchase an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS), which is important for both CERCUTS and ET whose projects require very low detection limits, and to convert a gas chromatograph - mass spectrometer (GC-MS) currently in the SAIT lab to a multi-dimensional gas chromatograph, or GCxGC.