Tag Archives: Alberta

Artificial intelligence (AI) company (in Montréal, Canada) attracts $135M in funding from Microsoft, Intel, Nvidia and others

It seems there’s a push on to establish Canada as a centre for artificial intelligence research and, if the federal and provincial governments have their way, for commercialization of said research. As always, there seems to be a bit of competition between Toronto (Ontario) and Montréal (Québec) as to which will be the dominant hub for the Canadian effort if one is to take Braga’s word for the situation.

In any event, Toronto seemed to have a mild advantage over Montréal initially with the 2017 Canadian federal government budget announcement that the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), based in Toronto, would launch a Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy and with an announcement from the University of Toronto shortly after (from my March 31, 2017 posting),

On the heels of the March 22, 2017 federal budget announcement of $125M for a Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy, the University of Toronto (U of T) has announced the inception of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence in a March 28, 2017 news release by Jennifer Robinson (Note: Links have been removed),

A team of globally renowned researchers at the University of Toronto is driving the planning of a new institute staking Toronto’s and Canada’s claim as the global leader in AI.

Geoffrey Hinton, a University Professor Emeritus in computer science at U of T and vice-president engineering fellow at Google, will serve as the chief scientific adviser of the newly created Vector Institute based in downtown Toronto.

“The University of Toronto has long been considered a global leader in artificial intelligence research,” said U of T President Meric Gertler. “It’s wonderful to see that expertise act as an anchor to bring together researchers, government and private sector actors through the Vector Institute, enabling them to aim even higher in leading advancements in this fast-growing, critical field.”

As part of the Government of Canada’s Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy, Vector will share $125 million in federal funding with fellow institutes in Montreal and Edmonton. All three will conduct research and secure talent to cement Canada’s position as a world leader in AI.

However, Montréal and the province of Québec are no slouches when it comes to supporting to technology. From a June 14, 2017 article by Matthew Braga for CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) news online (Note: Links have been removed),

One of the most promising new hubs for artificial intelligence research in Canada is going international, thanks to a $135 million investment with contributions from some of the biggest names in tech.

The company, Montreal-based Element AI, was founded last October [2016] to help companies that might not have much experience in artificial intelligence start using the technology to change the way they do business.

It’s equal parts general research lab and startup incubator, with employees working to develop new and improved techniques in artificial intelligence that might not be fully realized for years, while also commercializing products and services that can be sold to clients today.

It was co-founded by Yoshua Bengio — one of the pioneers of a type of AI research called machine learning — along with entrepreneurs Jean-François Gagné and Nicolas Chapados, and the Canadian venture capital fund Real Ventures.

In an interview, Bengio and Gagné said the money from the company’s funding round will be used to hire 250 new employees by next January. A hundred will be based in Montreal, but an additional 100 employees will be hired for a new office in Toronto, and the remaining 50 for an Element AI office in Asia — its first international outpost.

They will join more than 100 employees who work for Element AI today, having left jobs at Amazon, Uber and Google, among others, to work at the company’s headquarters in Montreal.

The expansion is a big vote of confidence in Element AI’s strategy from some of the world’s biggest technology companies. Microsoft, Intel and Nvidia all contributed to the round, and each is a key player in AI research and development.

The company has some not unexpected plans and partners (from the Braga, article, Note: A link has been removed),

The Series A round was led by Data Collective, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm, and included participation by Fidelity Investments Canada, National Bank of Canada, and Real Ventures.

What will it help the company do? Scale, its founders say.

“We’re looking at domain experts, artificial intelligence experts,” Gagné said. “We already have quite a few, but we’re looking at people that are at the top of their game in their domains.

“And at this point, it’s no longer just pure artificial intelligence, but people who understand, extremely well, robotics, industrial manufacturing, cybersecurity, and financial services in general, which are all the areas we’re going after.”

…

Gagné says that Element AI has already delivered 10 projects to clients in those areas, and have many more in development. In one case, Element AI has been helping a Japanese semiconductor company better analyze the data collected by the assembly robots on its factory floor, in a bid to reduce manufacturing errors and improve the quality of the company’s products.

…

There’s more to investment in Québec’s AI sector than Element AI (from the Braga article; Note: Links have been removed),

Element AI isn’t the only organization in Canada that investors are interested in.

In September, the Canadian government announced $213 million in funding for a handful of Montreal universities, while both Google and Microsoft announced expansions of their Montreal AI research groups in recent months alongside investments in local initiatives. The province of Quebec has pledged $100 million for AI initiatives by 2022.

…

Braga goes on to note some other initiatives but at that point the article’s focus is exclusively Toronto.

For more insight into the AI situation in Québec, there’s Dan Delmar’s May 23, 2017 article for the Montreal Express (Note: Links have been removed),

Advocating for massive government spending with little restraint admittedly deviates from the tenor of these columns, but the AI business is unlike any other before it. [emphasis misn] Having leaders acting as fervent advocates for the industry is crucial; resisting the coming technological tide is, as the Borg would say, futile.

The roughly 250 AI researchers who call Montreal home are not simply part of a niche industry. Quebec’s francophone character and Montreal’s multilingual citizenry are certainly factors favouring the development of language technology, but there’s ample opportunity for more ambitious endeavours with broader applications.

AI isn’t simply a technological breakthrough; it is the technological revolution. [emphasis mine] In the coming decades, modern computing will transform all industries, eliminating human inefficiencies and maximizing opportunities for innovation and growth — regardless of the ethical dilemmas that will inevitably arise.

“By 2020, we’ll have computers that are powerful enough to simulate the human brain,” said (in 2009) futurist Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity Is Near, a seminal 2006 book that has inspired a generation of AI technologists. Kurzweil’s projections are not science fiction but perhaps conservative, as some forms of AI already effectively replace many human cognitive functions. “By 2045, we’ll have expanded the intelligence of our human-machine civilization a billion-fold. That will be the singularity.”

The singularity concept, borrowed from physicists describing event horizons bordering matter-swallowing black holes in the cosmos, is the point of no return where human and machine intelligence will have completed their convergence. That’s when the machines “take over,” so to speak, and accelerate the development of civilization beyond traditional human understanding and capability.

…

The claims I’ve highlighted in Delmar’s article have been made before for other technologies, “xxx is like no other business before’ and “it is a technological revolution.” Also if you keep scrolling down to the bottom of the article, you’ll find Delmar is a ‘public relations consultant’ which, if you look at his LinkedIn profile, you’ll find means he’s a managing partner in a PR firm known as Provocateur.

Bertrand Marotte’s May 20, 2017 article for the Montreal Gazette offers less hyperbole along with additional detail about the Montréal scene (Note: Links have been removed),

It might seem like an ambitious goal, but key players in Montreal’s rapidly growing artificial-intelligence sector are intent on transforming the city into a Silicon Valley of AI.

Certainly, the flurry of activity these days indicates that AI in the city is on a roll. Impressive amounts of cash have been flowing into academia, public-private partnerships, research labs and startups active in AI in the Montreal area.

…

…, researchers at Microsoft Corp. have successfully developed a computing system able to decipher conversational speech as accurately as humans do. The technology makes the same, or fewer, errors than professional transcribers and could be a huge boon to major users of transcription services like law firms and the courts.

Setting the goal of attaining the critical mass of a Silicon Valley is “a nice point of reference,” said tech entrepreneur Jean-François Gagné, co-founder and chief executive officer of Element AI, an artificial intelligence startup factory launched last year.

…

The idea is to create a “fluid, dynamic ecosystem” in Montreal where AI research, startup, investment and commercialization activities all mesh productively together, said Gagné, who founded Element with researcher Nicolas Chapados and Université de Montréal deep learning pioneer Yoshua Bengio.

“Artificial intelligence is seen now as a strategic asset to governments and to corporations. The fight for resources is global,” he said.

The rise of Montreal — and rival Toronto — as AI hubs owes a lot to provincial and federal government funding.

Ottawa promised $213 million last September to fund AI and big data research at four Montreal post-secondary institutions. Quebec has earmarked $100 million over the next five years for the development of an AI “super-cluster” in the Montreal region.

The provincial government also created a 12-member blue-chip committee to develop a strategic plan to make Quebec an AI hub, co-chaired by Claridge Investments Ltd. CEO Pierre Boivin and Université de Montréal rector Guy Breton.

But private-sector money has also been flowing in, particularly from some of the established tech giants competing in an intense AI race for innovative breakthroughs and the best brains in the business.

…

Montreal’s rich talent pool is a major reason Waterloo, Ont.-based language-recognition startup Maluuba decided to open a research lab in the city, said the company’s vice-president of product development, Mohamed Musbah.

“It’s been incredible so far. The work being done in this space is putting Montreal on a pedestal around the world,” he said.

Microsoft struck a deal this year to acquire Maluuba, which is working to crack one of the holy grails of deep learning: teaching machines to read like the human brain does. Among the company’s software developments are voice assistants for smartphones.

Maluuba has also partnered with an undisclosed auto manufacturer to develop speech recognition applications for vehicles. Voice recognition applied to cars can include such things as asking for a weather report or making remote requests for the vehicle to unlock itself.

Marotte’s Twitter profile describes him as a freelance writer, editor, and translator.

Science policy for subnational constituencies such as a province or a territory (e.g. Canada & its provinces) or a state (e.g United States)

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The Council Canadian of Academies (CCA) released a report on subnational science policy that started life as a workshop on the province of Alberta’s science policy (see my Nov. 10, 2016 posting). Somehow by the time of the April 19, 2017 CCA news release (also received via email and found on EurekAlert) announcing the workshop report, the focus had widened,

A new report, Science Policy: Considerations for Subnational Governments, released today [April 19, 2017] by the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA), affirms the importance of explicit science policies at the subnational level.

“In Canada, science is as much a provincial endeavour as it is a national one,” said Dr. Joy Johnson, FCAHS, Chair of the CCA Workshop Steering Committee, and Vice President of Research at Simon Fraser University. “Currently, the institutions that perform science, together with the infrastructure and funding that enable it, are a part of a multi-level system that is uncoordinated and complex. Realizing the benefits of science as a country requires explicit and effective science policies across all levels of government.”

While all governments have implicit science policies, the report emphasizes that explicit science policies help to articulate the value and objectives of support for science, enhance government coordination and alignment, and increase transparency. Making science policy explicit at the subnational level can also aid in leveraging federal support for science.

The report is the outcome of a two-day expert workshop that sought to identify key considerations for science policies relevant to subnational jurisdictions, specifically for Canadian provinces and territories. Among its findings, the report notes that a comprehensive framework for science policy can be built around five core elements: people, infrastructure, research, science culture, and knowledge mobilization. The report also underscores that science and innovation policies are distinct, but inextricably linked, and that cross-sectoral and cross-governmental coordination and cooperation are essential. With science changing rapidly and research activities becoming increasingly globalized, a commitment to science and to flexible, yet consistent, science policy, is important for long-term success.

“This study suggests that a long-term commitment to subnational science policy is important for maintaining and developing the entire science ecosystem,” said Dr. Eric M. Meslin, FCAHS, President and CEO of the CCA. “Indeed, with the recent release of Canada’s Fundamental Science Review there is now an excellent opportunity for provinces to consider how their own investments in science can be coordinated or aligned with federal priorities for maximum impact.”

Requested by the Government of Alberta, the report also pulls out some specific considerations for the province and highlights successful research initiatives such as the Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority (AOSTRA) and the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR). Overall, the report is intended to be used by Canadian provinces and territories as a roadmap to guide conversations and inform decision-making about science policies at the subnational level.

Is anyone surprised that these experts would advise subnational science policies? Perhaps there’s a naïve ten-year-old out there?

Having gotten that off my chest, I have to admit I wouldn’t have come in with anything too different but I could guarantee a little more humour (assuming I’d have had anything to do with the final report).

On to the report, it’s a solid and workmanlike piece of writing and proposed policy as produced by the participants of the workshop (I see a few more people were added after my Nov. 10, 2016 posting), from the report,

Joy Johnson, FCAHS (Chair of the Steering Committee and Workshop),
Vice President Research, Simon Fraser
University (Burnaby, BC)

Paul Dufour (Steering Committee Member),
Adjunct Professor, Institute for Science, Society and Policy, University
of Ottawa (Gatineau, QC)

Janet Halliwell (Steering Committee Member),
President, J.E. Halliwell Associates Inc. (Salt Spring Island, BC)

Kaye Husbands Fealing (Steering Committee Member),
Chair and Professor, School of Public Policy, Georgia
Institute of Technology (Atlanta, GA)

Marc LePage (Steering Committee Member),
President and CEO, Genome Canada (Ottawa, ON)

Allison Barr, [new]
Director, Office of the Chief Scientist, Ontario
Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science (Toronto, ON)

Eric Cook, [new]
Executive Director and CEO, Research Productivity Council (Fredericton, NB)

Irwin Feller, [new]
Professor Emeritus, Pennsylvania State
University (State College, PA)

Peter Fenwick, [new]
Member, A100 (Calgary, AB)

Richard Hawkins, [new]
Professor, University of Calgary (Calgary, AB)

Jeff Kinder, [new]
Director, Federal Science and Technology Secretariat (Ottawa, ON)

Robert Lamb, [new]
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Light Source Inc. (Saskatoon, SK)

John Morin, [new]
Director of Policy, Planning and External Relations, Western Economic Diversification Canada
(Edmonton, AB)

Nils Petersen, [new]
Professor Emeritus, University of Alberta
(Edmonton, AB)

Grace Skogstad, [new]
Professor, University of Toronto (Toronto,
ON)

Dan Wicklum, [new]
Chief Executive, Canada’s Oil Sands
Innovation Alliance (COSIA) (Calgary, AB)

And, there were four reviewers,

David Castle,
Vice-President Research, University of Victoria (Victoria, BC)

Timothy I. Meyer,
Chief Operating Officer, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Batavia, Il)

Rémi Quirion, O.C., C.Q., FRSC,
Chief Scientist of Quebec (Montréal, QC)

P. Kim Sturgess, C.C., FCAE,
CEO, WaterSMART Ltd.
(Calgary, AB)

I expect there was an attempt to have women represented in the group of participants and amongst the reviewers. This time it worked out to five women out of 16 workshop participants or approximately 30% and one female reviewer out of four reviewers or 25%. I’m glad to see an effort has been made although I would like to these percentages increase.

As for regional representation, there was none from the North.

The international contingent were all from the US. As I’ve noted with regard to previous CCA reports, the international flavour is garnered from the US, the UK, another commonwealth country such as Australia or New Zealand, and, occasionally, from the European Union. Perhaps one of these times, experts from Asia, South America, or Africa might be included?

The key findings were (from the CCA Science Policy: Considerations for Subnational Governments webpage),

Key Findings

The rationale for creating an explicit science policy at the subnational level is compelling.

Science and innovation policies are distinct, but inextricably linked, for all levels of government.

Subnational governments play many of the same roles as national governments in supporting science.

A comprehensive framework for a science policy can be built around five core elements: people, infrastructure, research, science culture, and knowledge mobilization.

Cross-sectoral and cross-governmental coordination and cooperation are central to an effective subnational science policy.

A subnational science policy can bring clarity to provincial research priorities.

Committing long term to a subnational science policy is important for maintaining and developing the science system.

I’m picking a few bits out of the report that I found to be of particular interest. The cover features two light bulbs, appropriately since a couple of Canadians invented them (Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans). Then, Thomas Edison bought the patent, refined the invention, and commercialized it. Oddly, I haven’t been able to find any description of or credit for the front page illustration; which would have been helpful as most Canadians are not familiar with that piece of history.

Moving on, there’s no specific definition for the term, subnational.The closest they get is ‘regional’. In Canada, that presumably means provincial although they could be including cities and other regional jurisdictions such as Metro Vancouver, which includes the city of Vancouver along with several other municipalities. However, the impression is that they are discussing provincial governments only.

The emphasis on the provinces is interesting in light of the ‘Naylor’ report (also known as INVESTING IN CANADA’S FUTURE; Strengthening the Foundations of Canadian Research or Canada’s Fundamental Science Review 2017) which found that interprovincial research collaboration was quite poor (see my June 8, 2017 part 2 posting; scroll down about 60% of the way). I did not find any recommendations about improving that situation in the Naylor report and the issue of poor interprovincial collaboration is not mentioned at all in this Science Policy: Considerations for Subnational Governments report.

Moving on to what was in the report that was of interest to me, there was this on computation and digital infrastructure,

Rapid growth in the data requirements of many areas of scientific work is creating both physical and virtual infrastructure needs. Access to high-power computing capacity, data storage, and high-speed networking is increasingly vital to many domains of research activity, from oceanography to neuroscience. In Canada national organizations such as CANARIE and Compute Canada respond to these needs and focus investments in continued development of Canada’s digital research infrastructure (CANARIE, n.d.; CC, n.d.). These may be supported further by provincial investments, such as the Ontario government’s investment in Compute Ontario and the B.C. government’s support for the WestGrid high performance computing network (Gov. of BC, 2011; CC, 2016). Data harmonization, interoperability, and standardization can accelerate research and lead to new advances, particularly in health research. At a pan-Canadian level, the Leadership Council for Digital Infrastructure is seeking to coordinate the diverse players in the digital infrastructure ecosystem (LCDI, n.d.). Subnationally, provinces must also consider the adequacy of regional digital infrastructure, taking into account the requirements associated with provincial research priorities and how best to coordinate provincial, regional, [emphasis mine] and federal support. (p. 11 print; p. 23 PDF)

This was the most specific section of the report naming specific agencies and responsibilities. Intriguingly, they mention provincial and regional support separately but I believe that regional in this instance means ‘Atlantic’, ‘Western’, ‘Prairie’, Maritime’, etc., in other words, provincial and territorial (?) groupings. As the Naylor report also went into some detail about digital infrastructure, which I didn’t choose to mention in my three part commentary, I’m beginning to suspect some anxiety is being felt about data. Given the increasing concerns over cyber security both in Canada and around the globe, the anxiety is to be expected.

Next up, Science Culture (sigh),

Workshop participants suggested that subnational governments have a role to play in supporting a strong science culture through education, public science outreach,
engagement, and communication. This begins with science education at the primary and secondary levels, which provinces can direct through provincial science curricula in the K-12 system. Overall, Canada performs well in student science achievement relative to other countries as measured through the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) (OECD, 2016). The development of K-12 science curricula in many provinces benefitted from the 1997 Common Framework of Science Learning Outcomes created by the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC, 1997), and from the 1984 Science Council of Canada report, Science for Every Student (SCC, 1984). That report reviewed science education at the primary and secondary levels, and established a vision for public science literacy in Canada. Research has since confirmed the fundamental role of science education as a key determinant of civic science literacy (Miller, 1998).

Support for Informal Science Learning and Engagement

Beyond formal science education, there are many avenues through which subnational governments can support public engagement in the sciences. Science centres and museums provide opportunities for the public to experience science in interactive, hands-on forums, which increasingly harness new digital and communication technologies. Expert science communicators and science ambassadors can make scientific work more accessible to the public, illuminating its relevance and potential. Non-profit organizations can build interest and knowledge among youth in the STEM fields (LTS, n.d.). Science fairs and festivals can also foster excitement about science. Contemporary science festivals often involve collaborations of musicians, artists, [emphasis mine] technologies, engineers, researchers, and communicators of many types.³ Governments can promote scientific and technological awareness through designated science and technology days or weeks. Chief scientists can officially support public science engagement, as is the case in Australia (see Gov. of AU, n.d.). Granting programs can create incentives to encourage researchers to participate in science communication and outreach activities. However, such incentives require careful structuring because not all researchers have the inclination or skills needed to communicate their work to a broader audience.

Subnational governments often support science centres, museums, and other forms of public science outreach. In Quebec, science culture is explicitly identified as a sub-priority in the provincial science policy (Gov. of QC, 2013), but such support is not always connected to or formally recognized in subnational science policies. Leaving such support unconnected to the larger policy framework that outlines the government’s approach to supporting science may contribute to a lack of alignment and coordination of government support. (pp. 12-3 print; pp. 24-5 PDF)

While it can’t be denied that reaching out to children and youth is important, science outreach for adults may be the key to getting more science participation from science and youth. I wrote about two 2012 studies one in the UK (ASPIRES) and the other in the US, which strongly suggested that children and teens can get excited about science and still decide that it’s ‘not for me’ because no one they know (parents, family friends, etc.) has a ‘scientific’ job. The impact that your family has on your occupational aspirations is quite substantive. You can read about the two studies in my Jan. 31, 2012 posting.There’s also a plaintive plea for more adult science outreach in my May 12, 2017 posting. One final note about science culture, given the mention of artists and musicians, I’m surprised they didn’t mention STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics).

The last bit I’m going to mention is Alberta’s position vis-à-vis science policy,

Alberta has a long history of supporting scientific research in the province. As noted earlier, the Alberta Research Council was established in 1921 as Canada’s first provincial research organization (ACT, 2016). Almost 100 years later, its legacy is carried on through research and technology development activities under the auspices of Alberta Innovates. Workshop participants pointed to two sectoral initiatives that are regarded as particular research success stories in the provincial research landscape: the Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority (AOSTRA) established in 1974, and the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) established through an endowment in 1980 (AIHS, 2016; ACT, n.d.) (see Box 4.1 for a brief discussion of each). Both initiatives are seen as “big bets” that have delivered significant benefits for the province; workshop participants cautioned that small
investments over short periods are less likely to deliver noticeable impacts.

Today, Alberta is home to a dynamic science system and its scientific contributions are nationally and internationally competitive by many measures. Workshop participants identified the talent pool and a strong university research system as key strengths of Alberta’s science system. While bibliometric indicators (indicators based on research publication and citation patterns) are not valid measures of strength across all areas of academic research, they are valuable in many domains, especially when used to compare like with like. Using data collected by the CCA (2012b, 2016) in its studies of the state of science and technology and industrial R&D in Canada, a snapshot of Alberta’s strengths is revealing. Alberta’s research output and impact are broadly on par with Canada’s other large provinces: it has the second highest rate of publications per faculty researcher, the fourth highest Average Relative Citation (ARC) score⁶ among the provinces, and the third highest rate of doctoral graduates per population after Quebec and Ontario (CCA, 2012b, 2016). Bibliometric analysis indicates that Alberta’s research output is comparatively high in fields such as Public Health and Health Services; Earth and Environmental Sciences; Philosophy and Theology; and Psychology and Cognitive Sciences (Figure 4.1). Fields in which Alberta has a high research impact (as reflected by citations) include Clinical Medicine; Physics and Astronomy; Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry; Historical Studies; Economics and Business; and Information and Communication Technologies (Figure 4.2).

The four themes of Alberta Innovates give a sense of current research priorities, with the government offering significant funding support under bio solutions, energy and environment, health, and technology futures (AI, n.d.). Nanotechnology is another area of focus with the National Institute for Nanotechnology as an important piece of a broader nanotechnology cluster and strategy for Alberta. The province has developed a nanotechnology strategy that seeks to expand the sector, focusing on commercialization, talent, and infrastructure (Gov. of AB, 2007). (p. 20 print; p. 32 PDF)

⁶ The ARC score “is a measure of the frequency of citation of publications” (CCA, 2012b).

There is no question that Alberta has worked hard to establish its scientific credentials. I’m a little surprised the report doesn’t mention Québec’s efforts in more detail as they have been on a par with Alberta’s. I expect Ontario should also score well this in area but I stumble less frequently on information about Ontario’s science efforts than I do for Alberta and Québec. One last thing, it should be noted that the province of Alberta paid for this workshop/assessment either in large part or in whole.

In sum, they covered the bases competently and thoughtfully if not imaginatively. For anyone who’s has the time, there’s the full report (Science Policy: Considerations for Subnational Governments report) and its recommendations on gender and diversity, researcher mobility, alignment with federal support and programmes, science advice and evidence-based policy, and more.

Nano scene in Alberta: world’s smallest National Hockey League logo and $!.7M for oil spill mesh

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I have two news bits about Alberta’s nanotechnology scene, one focused on a hockey logo (this year [2017], there are two Canadian teams [Edmonton Oilers and Ottawa Senators] competing to get to the finals and a Stanley Cup win sometime in June; there hasn’t been a win by a Canadian team since 1993); the other news bit concerns funding for research into technology for oil spill cleanups.

National Hockey League (NHL) logo

To celebrate the Edmonton Oilers entry into the semifinals, folks at the University of Alberta have created the smallest NHL logo for them. From a May 1, 2017 news item by Chad Mosleh for Metro News Edmonton,

A department at the University of Alberta has created an Oilers logo so small you could fit 900 million of them on top of a puck.

“We’re constantly trying to push the limit of how small we can make things,” said Eric Flaim, director of the NanoFAB Fabrication & Characterization Centre, which focuses on research on micro and nanoscale units, which are particles so tiny you need an extremely powerful microscope to see them.

The microscopic Oilers logo was created in collaboration with Edmonton-based companies Applied Quantum Materials and Applied Nanotools. The logo is 2.4 micrometres in diameter, 40 times smaller than a similar one they made in 2006, which was roughly the width of a human hair. The university is calling it the world’s smallest NHL logo.

[downloaded from https://www.nanofab.ualberta.ca/2017/news/lets-go-oilers/]

An April 27, 2017 posting by Dr. Eric Flaim for the University of Alberta’s nanoFAB blog notes this (Note: Links have been removed),

Working in partnership with two Edmonton companies who are developing new nanoscale fabrication processes to support commercialization of made-in-Alberta technology for photonics, sensors, and nanomaterials, the nanoFAB took the opportunity to show pride in our Edmonton Oilers.

Using a nanomaterial developed by Applied Quantum Materials, and nanoscale pattern correction methods developed by Applied Nanotools, we thought it would be fitting to re-create the logo we fabricated during the Oilers’ last playoff run…albeit at a much smaller scale.

Whereas the Oilers logo in 2006 was about the width of a human hair, the logo we made for this year’s Orange Crush is over 40× smaller: at only 2.4 µm in diameter, over 900 million of these logos could fit on top of a hockey puck.

Beyond showing team spirit, the fabrication of this logo highlights several of the unique capabilities available at the nanoFAB. The logo was fabricated via electron-beam lithography (EBL) with our Raith 150-TWO system, using AQM SIOX as the EBL resist—a made-in-Edmonton alternative to the ultra-high resolution hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) resist. At such a small length scale, sophisticated pattern correction techniques must be used to ensure the fidelity of the design; this expertise was provided by engineers from Applied Nanotools, who use the same methods for their high-resolution silicon photonics service. Finally, the images of the logos were taken using our Zeiss Orion NanoFab Helium Ion microscope.

I wonder how the University of Ottawa and the Ottawa Senators team are responding to this development?

Oil spills and carbon nanotube (CNT) meshes

An April 28, 2017 Ingenuity Lab news release (which rather weirdly has London, England listed as the location in the dateline) on MarketWired announces Canadian federal government funding for a project centered in Alberta, Canada,

Nanotechnology has had a multitude of applications: from healthcare to textiles to new consumer gadgets, innovative new uses for nanotechnology are constantly emerging. It has now found a new role, with University of Alberta-based nanotechnology accelerator Ingenuity Lab using it as the basis for the development of a revolutionary new way to clean up oil spills. The system has received a vote of confidence from Natural Resources Canada, with the organization providing $1.7m to fund its ongoing development.

Using a carbon-nanotube mesh combined with other minerals and polymers, Ingenuity Lab’s system acts as a sponge that attracts and absorbs oil underwater. When it is fully saturated with oil, the mesh is then removed from the water and exposed to heat, electricity or ultraviolet light, causing it to expel the collected oil.

The oil spill cleaning system has come a long way in a remarkably short amount of time. Director of Ingenuity Lab Dr Carlo Montemango [sic] said his team was able to demonstrate the effectiveness of the membrane approximately a year ago, but is now working on developing a large-scale version of the system. “Where you might see it is being rolled off the back [of a vessel] and dragged or moved through the water. As it becomes saturated, it would be brought on board, the oil would be expelled and it would be redeployed.”

Past tests have shown the system can be remarkably effective and is capable of cleaning up 100 percent of a spill – even the heavier oil that may be trapped below the surface. The system also recovers the oil, allowing it to be reused and potentially recuperate some of the cost associated with cleaning up a spill.

The technology is far more advanced than current methods of containing a spill, which usually involve floating booms and skimming oil from the water’s surface. Ingenuity Lab’s system would make a substantial difference should the world see another event on the scale of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, or the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989.

This is by no means the first nanotechnology project Ingenuity Lab has worked on. Other projects have looked at capturing carbon emissions, healthcare and agriculture.

Montemango [sic] said the team is now working on developing a pilot system and beginning field tests in less than two years. “Our mission is to develop solutions to significant societal problems and challenges, and translate those solutions to the marketplace.”

I searched for more information about the new funding and found this news release (?) on the Ingenuity Lab website,

Oil is a common pollutant in oceans; more than three million metric tons of oil contaminate them every year. The accidental release of crude oil into a body of water by an oil tanker, refinery, storage facility, underwater pipeline, or offshore oil-drilling rig, is an environmental emergency. Depending on location, oil spills can be both hazardous as well as environmentally destructive. Timely cleanup is critical to protecting the integrity of the water, the shoreline, and the creatures that depend on these habitats. Due to increased scrutiny of the oil industry (with regards to its environmental record) the attention has focused on the development of new materials and technologies for removing organic contaminants; including spilled oil from waterways. Since existing methods are not sufficiently robust, nanotechnology has initiated the development of new tools using specifically designed materials suited for separations, such as the removal of crude oil from water.

Ingenuity Lab, a multidisciplinary research initiative based in Alberta, received $1.7 million in project funding for the research and development of an effective alternative for recovering heavy oil spilled in marine environments. IngenuityLab developed nanowire-based multifunctional stimuli-responsive membranes and devices capable of recovering the oil from spills.

This project will focus on the recovery of oil through the development of novel technology and devices using a variety of stimuli-responsive nanomaterials. The fabrication of reinforced membranes for oil-water separation (published in Adv. Mater. Interfaces, 2016, 3: 1600445) [emphasis mine] uses carbon nanotubes (CNTs), mats, and a few other metal oxide embedded nanowire hybrid membranes. They exhibit the switchable hydrophobic property with the influence of stimuli (UV, heat, electric, etc.). The focus of using the membranes is to develop a pilot facility for separating the oil out of spills to clean the environment while recovering the valuable oils.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper I highlighted in the news release (?),

Electric Field Induced Switchable Wettability to Water on the Polyaniline Membrane and Oil/Water Separation by Xi Zheng, Zhenyan Guo, Dongliang Tian, Xiaofang Zhang, and Lei Jiang. Advanced Materials Interfaces Volume 3, Issue 18, September 20, 2016 DOI: 10.1002/admi.201600461 Version of Record online: 7 JUL 2016

© 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

This paper is behind a paywall.

I have a few comments about this work. it’s encouraging to see these efforts to develop better technologies for cleaning up oil spills but it does seem that none of these proposed solutions ever makes it out of the laboratory. For example, I have an April 17, 2012 posting about CNT nanosponges that absorb oil and which could be wrung out and reused. More recently, I had a Dec. 7, 2015 posting featuring boron nitride nanosponges (or nanosheets) for oil spill cleanups. Personally, I prefer sponges that can be wrung out over meshes or sponges that need additional processing such as exposure ” … to heat, electricity or ultraviolet light … .” Regardless, I hope one of these days, a new oil spill cleanup technology will make its way into the field.

For those not familiar with Alberta and the oil industry, the province is a main source for the fossil fuel and, in particular, the Alberta oil sands, which environmentalists have uncategorically condemned.

nano tech 2017 being held in Tokyo from February 15-17, 2017

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I found some news about the Alberta technology scene in the programme for Japan’s nano tech 2017 exhibition and conference to be held Feb. 15 – 17, 2017 in Tokyo. First, here’s more about the show in Japan from a Jan. 17, 2017 nano tech 2017 press release on Business Wire (also on Yahoo News),

The nano tech executive committee (chairman: Tomoji Kawai, Specially Appointed Professor, Osaka University) will be holding “nano tech 2017” – one of the world’s largest nanotechnology exhibitions, now in its 16th year – on February 15, 2017, at the Tokyo Big Sight convention center in Japan. 600 organizations (including over 40 first-time exhibitors) from 23 countries and regions are set to exhibit at the event in 1,000 booths, demonstrating revolutionary and cutting edge core technologies spanning such industries as automotive, aerospace, environment/energy, next-generation sensors, cutting-edge medicine, and more. Including attendees at the concurrently held exhibitions, the total number of visitors to the event is expected to exceed 50,000.

The theme of this year’s nano tech exhibition is “Open Nano Collaboration.” By bringing together organizations working in a wide variety of fields, the business matching event aims to promote joint development through cross-field collaboration.

Special Symposium: “Nanotechnology Contributing to the Super Smart Society”

Each year nano tech holds Special Symposium, in which industry specialists from top organizations from Japan and abroad speak about the issues surrounding the latest trends in nanotech. The themes of this year’s Symposium are Life Nanotechnology, Graphene, AI/IoT, Cellulose Nanofibers, and Materials Informatics.

Notable sessions include:

Life Nanotechnology
“Development of microRNA liquid biopsy for early detection of cancer”
Takahiro Ochiya, National Cancer Center Research Institute Division of Molecular and Cellular Medicine, Chief

AI / IoT
“AI Embedded in the Real World”
Hideki Asoh, AIST Deputy Director, Artificial Intelligence Research Center

Cellulose Nanofibers [emphasis mine]
“The Current Trends and Challenges for Industrialization of Nanocellulose”
Satoshi Hirata, Nanocellulose Forum Secretary-General

Materials Informatics
“Perspective of Materials Research”
Hideo Hosono, Tokyo Institute of Technology Professor

View the full list of sessions:
>> http://nanotech2017.icsbizmatch.jp/Presentation/en/Info/List#main_theater

nano tech 2017 Homepage:
>> http://nanotechexpo.jp/

nano tech 2017, the 16th International Nanotechnology Exhibition & Conference
Date: February 15-17, 2017, 10:00-17:00
Venue: Tokyo Big Sight (East Halls 4-6 & Conference Tower)
Organizer: nano tech Executive Committee, JTB Communication Design

As you may have guessed the Alberta information can be found in the .Cellulose Nanofibers session. From the conference/seminar program page; scroll down about 25% of the way to find the Alberta presentation,

Production and Applications Development of Cellulose Nanocrystals (CNC) at InnoTech Alberta

Behzad (Benji) Ahvazi
InnoTech Alberta Team Lead, Cellulose Nanocrystals (CNC)

[ Abstract ]

The production and use of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) is an emerging technology that has gained considerable interest from a range of industries that are working towards increased use of “green” biobased materials. The construction of one-of-a-kind CNC pilot plant [emphasis mine] at InnoTech Alberta and production of CNC samples represents a critical step for introducing the cellulosic based biomaterials to industrial markets and provides a platform for the development of novel high value and high volume applications. Major key components including feedstock, acid hydrolysis formulation, purification, and drying processes were optimized significantly to reduce the operation cost. Fully characterized CNC samples were provided to a large number of academic and research laboratories including various industries domestically and internationally for applications development.

[ Profile ]

Dr. Ahvazi completed his Bachelor of Science in Honours program at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and graduated with distinction at Concordia University in Montréal, Québec. His Ph.D. program was completed in 1998 at McGill Pulp and Paper Research Centre in the area of macromolecules with solid background in Lignocellulosic, organic wood chemistry as well as pulping and paper technology. After completing his post-doctoral fellowship, he joined FPInnovations formally [formerly?] known as PAPRICAN as a research scientist (R&D) focusing on a number of confidential chemical pulping and bleaching projects. In 2006, he worked at Tembec as a senior research scientist and as a Leader in Alcohol and Lignin (R&D). In April 2009, he held a position as a Research Officer in both National Bioproducts (NBP1 & NBP2) and Industrial Biomaterials Flagship programs at National Research Council Canada (NRC). During his tenure, he had directed and performed innovative R&D activities within both programs on extraction, modification, and characterization of biomass as well as polymer synthesis and formulation for industrial applications. Currently, he is working at InnoTech Alberta as Team Lead for Biomass Conversion and Processing Technologies.

Canada scene update

InnoTech Alberta was until Nov. 1, 2016 known as Alberta Innovates – Technology Futures. Here’s more about InnoTech Alberta from the Alberta Innovates … home page,

Effective November 1, 2016, Alberta Innovates – Technology Futures is one of four corporations now consolidated into Alberta Innovates and a wholly owned subsidiary called InnoTech Alberta.

You will find all the existing programs, services and information offered by InnoTech Alberta on this website. To access the basic research funding and commercialization programs previously offered by Alberta Innovates – Technology Futures, explore here. For more information on Alberta Innovates, visit the new Alberta Innovates website.

As for InnoTech Alberta’s “one-of-a-kind CNC pilot plant,” I’d like to know more about it’s one-of-a-kind status since there are two other CNC production plants in Canada. (Is the status a consequence of regional chauvinism or a writer unfamiliar with the topic?). Getting back to the topic, the largest company (and I believe the first) with a CNC plant was CelluForce, which started as a joint venture between Domtar and FPInnovations and powered with some very heavy investment from the government of Canada. (See my July 16, 2010 posting about the construction of the plant in Quebec and my June 6, 2011 posting about the newly named CelluForce.) Interestingly, CelluForce will have a booth at nano tech 2017 (according to its Jan. 27, 2017 news release) although the company doesn’t seem to have any presentations on the schedule. The other Canadian company is Blue Goose Biorefineries in Saskatchewan. Here’s more about Blue Goose from the company website’s home page,

Blue Goose Biorefineries Inc. (Blue Goose) is pleased to introduce our R3^TM process. R3^TM technology incorporates green chemistry to fractionate renewable plant biomass into high value products.

Traditionally, separating lignocellulosic biomass required high temperatures, harsh chemicals, and complicated processes. R3^TM breaks this costly compromise to yield high quality cellulose, lignin and hemicellulose products.

The robust and environmentally friendly R3^TM technology has numerous applications. Our current product focus is cellulose nanocrystals (CNC). Cellulose nanocrystals are “Mother Nature’s Building Blocks” possessing unique properties. These unique properties encourage the design of innovative products from a safe, inherently renewable, sustainable, and carbon neutral resource.

Blue Goose assists companies and research groups in the development of applications for CNC, by offering CNC for sale without Intellectual Property restrictions. [emphasis mine]

Bravo to Blue Goose! Unfortunately, I was not able to determine if the company will be at nano tech 2017.

One final comment, there was some excitement about CNC a while back where I had more than one person contact me asking for information about how to buy CNC. I wasn’t able to be helpful because there was, apparently, an attempt by producers to control sales and limit CNC access to a select few for competitive advantage. Coincidentally or not, CelluForce developed a stockpile which has persisted for some years as I noted in my Aug. 17, 2016 posting (scroll down about 70% of the way) where the company announced amongst other events that it expected deplete its stockpile by mid-2017.

Understanding nanotechnology with Timbits; a peculiarly Canadian explanation

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For the uninitiated, Timbits are also known as donut holes. Tim Hortons, founded by ex-National Hockey League player Tim Horton who has since deceased, has taken hold in the Canada’s language and culture such that one of our scientists trying to to explain nanotechnology thought it would be best understood in terms of Timbits. From a Jan. 14, 2017 article (How nanotechnology could change our lives) by Vanessa Lu for thestar.com,

The future is all in the tiny.

Known as nanoparticles, these are the tiniest particles, so small that we can’t see them or even imagine how small they are.

University of Waterloo’s Frank Gu paints a picture of their scale.

“Take a Timbit and start slicing it into smaller and smaller pieces, so small that every Canadian — about 35 million of us — can hold a piece of the treat,” he said. “And those tiny pieces are still a little bigger than a nanoparticle.”

For years, consumers have seen the benefits of nanotechnology in everything from shrinking cellphones to ultrathin televisions. Apple’s iPhones have become more powerful as they have become smaller — where a chip now holds billions of transistors.

“As you go smaller, it creates less footprint and more power,” said Gu, who holds the Canada research chair in advanced targeted delivery systems. “FaceTime, Skype — they are all powered by nanotechnology, with their retina display.”

…

Lu wrote a second January 14, 2017 article (Researchers developing nanoparticles to purify water) for thestar.com,

When scientists go with their gut or act on a hunch, it can pay off.

For Tim Leshuk, a PhD student in nanotechnology at the University of Waterloo, he knew it was a long shot.

Leshuk had been working with Frank Gu, who leads a nanotechnology research group, on using tiny nanoparticles that have been tweaked with certain properties to purify contaminated water.

Leshuk was working on the process, treating dirty water such as that found in Alberta’s oilsands, with the nanoparticles combined with ultraviolet light. He wondered what might happen if exposed to actual sunlight.

“I didn’t have high hopes,” he said. “For the heck of it, I took some beakers out and put them on the roof. And when I came back, it was far more effective that we had seen with regular UV light.

“It was high-fives all around,” Leshuk said. “It’s not like a Brita filter or a sponge that just soaks up pollutants. It completely breaks them down.”

Things are accelerating quickly, with a spinoff company now formally created called H2nanO, with more ongoing tests scheduled. The research has drawn attention from oilsands companies, and [a] large pre-pilot project to be funded by the Canadian Oil Sands Innovation Alliance is due to get under way soon.

The excitement comes because it’s an entirely green process, converting solar energy for cleanup, and the nanoparticle material is reuseable, over and over.

…

It’s good to see a couple of articles about nanotechnology. The work by Tim Leshuk was highlighted here in a Dec. 1, 2015 posting titled: New photocatalytic approach to cleaning wastewater from oil sands. I see the company wasn’t mentioned in the posting so, it must be new; you can find H2nanO here.

Discussion of a divisive topic: the Oilsands

As for the oilsands, it’s been an interesting few days with the Prime Minister’s (Justin Trudeau) suggestion that dependence would be phased out causing a furor of sorts. From a Jan. 13, 2017 article by James Wood for the Calgary Herald,

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s musings about phasing out the oilsands Friday [Jan. 13, 2017] were met with a barrage of criticism from Alberta’s conservative politicians and a pledge from Premier Rachel Notley that the province’s energy industry was “not going anywhere, any time soon.”

Asked at a town hall event in Peterborough [Ontario] about the federal government’s recent approval of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, Trudeau reiterated his longstanding remarks that he is attempting to balance economic and environmental concerns.

“We can’t shut down the oilsands tomorrow. We need to phase them out. We need to manage the transition off of our dependence on fossil fuels but it’s going to take time and in the meantime we have to manage that transition,” he added.

Northern Alberta’s oilsands are a prime target for environmentalists because of their significant output of greenhouse gas emissions linked to global climate change.

Trudeau, who will be in Calgary for a cabinet retreat on Jan. 23 and 24 [2017], also said again that it is the responsibility of the national government to get Canadian resources to market.

…

Meanwhile, Jane Fonda, Hollywood actress, weighed in on the issue of the Alberta oilsands with this (from a Jan. 11, 2017 article by Tristan Hopper for the National Post),

Fort McMurrayites might have assumed the celebrity visits would stop after the city was swept first by recession, and then by wildfire.

Or when the provincial government introduced a carbon tax and started phasing out coal.

And surely, with Donald Trump in the White House, even the oiliest corner of Canada would shift to the activist back burner.

But no; here comes Jane Fonda.

“We don’t need new pipelines,” she told a Wednesday [Jan. 11, 2017] press conference at the University of Alberta where she also dismissed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a “good-looking Liberal” who couldn’t be trusted.

Saying that her voice was joined with the “Indigenous people of Canada,” Fonda explained her trip to Alberta by saying “when you’re famous you can help amplify the voices of people that can’t necessarily get a lot of press people to come out.”

Fonda is in Alberta at the invitation of Greenpeace, which has brought her here in support of the Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion — a group of Canadian First Nations and U.S. tribes opposed to new pipelines to the Athabasca oilsands.

Appearing alongside Fonda, at a table with a sign reading “Respect Indigenous Decisions,” was Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, who, as leader of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, has led anti-pipeline protests and litigation in British Columbia.

“The future is going to be incredibly litigious,” he said in reference to the approved expansion of the Trans-Mountain pipeline.

The event also included Grand Chief Derek Nepinak of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, which is leading a legal challenge to federal approval of the Line 3 pipeline.

Although much of Athabasca’s oil production now comes from “steam-assisted gravity drainage” projects that requires minimal surface disturbance, on Tuesday Fonda took the requisite helicopter tour of a Fort McMurray-area open pit mine.

As you can see, there are not going to be any easy answers.

Bob McDonald: How is Canada on the ‘forefront of pushing nanotechnology forward’?

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Mr. Quirks & Quarks, also known as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) Bob McDonald, host of the science radio programme Quirks & Quarks, published an Oct. 9, 2016 posting on the programme’s CBC blog about the recently awarded 2016 Nobel Prize for Chemistry and Canada’s efforts in the field of nanotechnology (Links have been removed),

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded this week for developments in nanotechnology heralds a new era in science, akin to the discovery of electromagnetic induction 185 years ago. And like electricity, nanotechnology could influence the world in dramatic ways, not even imaginable today.

The world’s tiniest machines

The Nobel Laureates developed molecular machines, which are incredibly tiny devices assembled one molecule at a time, including a working motor, a lifting machine, a micro-muscle, and even a four wheel drive vehicle, all of which can only be seen with the most powerful electron microscopes. While these lab experiments are novel curiosities, the implications are huge, and Canada is on the forefront of pushing this research forward. [emphasis mine]

McDonald never explains how Canadians are pushing nanotechnology research further but there is this (Note: Links have been removed),

Many universities offer degree programs on the subject while organizations such as the National Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Alberta, and the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, are conducting fundamental research on these new novel materials.

Somehow he never mentions any boundary-pushing research. hmmm

To be blunt, it’s very hard to establish Canada’s position in the field since ‘nanotechnolgy research’ as such doesn’t exist here in the way it does in the United States, Korea, Iran, Germany, China, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Austria, and others. It’s not a federally coordinated effort in Canada despite the fact that we have a Canada National Research Council (NRC) National Institute of Nanotechnology (NINT) in Alberta. (There’s very little information about research on the NINT website.) A Government of Canada NanoPortal is poorly maintained and includes information that is seriously out-of-date. One area where Canadians have been influential has been at the international level where we’ve collaborated on a number of OECD (Organization for Economic and Cooperative Development) projects focused on safety (occupational and environmental, in particular) issues.

Canada’s Ingenuity Lab, a nanotechnology project that appeared promising, hasn’t made many research announcements and seems to be a provincial (Alberta) initiative rather than a federal one. In fact, the most activity in the field of nanotechnology research has been at the provincial level with Alberta and Québec in the lead, if financial investment is your primary measure, and Ontario following, then the other provinces trailing from behind. Unfortunately, I’ve never come across any nanotechnology research from the Yukon or other parts North.

With regard to research announcements, the situation changes and you have Québec and Ontario assuming the lead positions with Alberta following. As McDonald noted, the University of Waterloo has a major nanotechnology education programme and the University of Toronto seems to have a very active research focus in that field (Ted Sargent and solar cells and quantum dots) and the University of Guelph is known for its work in agriculture and nanotechnolgy (search this blog using any of the three universities as a search term). In Québec, they’ve made a number of announcements about cutting edge research. You can search this blog for the names Sylvain Martel, Federico Rosei, and Claude Ostiguy (who seems to work primarily in French), amongst others. CelluForce, based in Quebec, and once a leader (not sure about the situation these days) in the production of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC). One side comment, CNC was first developed at the University of British Columbia, however, Québec showed more support (provincial funding) and interest and the bulk of that research effort moved.

There’s one more shout out and that’s for Blue Goose Biorefineries in the province of Saskatchewan, which sells CNC and offers services to help companies research applications for the material.

One other significant area of interest comes to mind, the graphite mines in Québec and Ontario which supply graphite flakes used to produce graphene, a material that is supposed to revolutionize electronics, in particular.

There are other research efforts and laboratories in Canada but these are the institutions and researchers with which I’m most familiar after more than eight years of blogging about Canadian nanotechnology. That said, if I’ve missed any significant, please do let me know in the comments section of this blog.

Alberta’s Ingenuity Lab opens new facility in India and competes in the Carbon XPRIZE

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India

The Ingenuity Lab in Alberta has made two recent announcements. The first one to catch my attention was a May 7, 2016 news item on Nanotechnology Now,

Ingenuity Lab is proud to announce the opening of the Ingenuity Lab Research Hub at Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, Kerala India, to implement applied research and enable the translation of new 22nd century technologies. This new facility is the result of collaboration between the International and Inter University Centre for Nanoscience Nanotechnology (IIUCNN) and Ingenuity Lab to leverage what each participant does best.

Should the Nanotechnology Now news item not be available you can find the same information in a May 6, 2016 news item in The Canadian Business News Journal. Here’s the rest of the news item,

Ingenuity Lab, led by Dr. Carlo Montemagno, brings the best minds together to address global challenges and was in 2014 voted the Best Nanotechnology Research Organisation in 2014 by The New Economy. IIUCNN is led by Professor Sabu Thomas, whose vision it is to perform and coordinate academic and research activities in the frontier areas of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology by incorporating physical, chemical, biological and environmental aspects.

The two institutions are world-renowned for their work, and the new partnership should cover areas as diverse as catalysis, macromolecules, environmental chemistry, biological processes and health and wellness.

“The initial focus,” according to Ingenuity Lab’s Director Dr. Carlo Montemagno, “Will be on inexpensive point of care healthcare technologies and water availability for both agriculture and personal consumption.” However, in the future, he says, “We plan to expand the scope to include food safety and energy systems.”

Ingenuity Lab’s role is to focus on producing, adapting and supplying new materials to Ingenuity Lab India to focus on final device development and field-testing. The India team members know what system characteristics work best in developing economies, and will establish the figures of merit to make an appropriate solution. Alberta team members will then use this information to exercise its skills in advance materials and systems design to be crafted into its final form and field-tested.

The collaboration is somewhat unique in that it includes the bilateral exchange of students and researchers to facilitate the commercial translation of new and game changing technologies.

Dr. Babu Sebastian, Honourable Vice Chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi University, will declare the opening of the new facility in the presence of Dr. Montemagno, who will explain the vision of this research hub in association with his plenary lecture of ICM 2016.

Carbon XPRIZE

A May 9, 2016 press release on Market Wired describes Ingenuity Lab’s latest venture into carbon ‘transformation’,

Alberta-based Ingenuity Lab has entered the Carbon XPRIZE under the name of Ingenuity Carbon Solutions. With competition registration taking place in March, Ingenuity Carbon Solutions plans to launch its latest carbon transformation technology and win the backing it so deserves on the world stage.

…

Ingenuity Lab is working to develop a technology that transforms CO2 emissions and changes the conversation on carbon and its consequences for the environment. By developing nano particles that have the capability to sequester CO2 from facility gas flue emissions, the technology can metabolize emissions into marketable by-products.

The Carbon XPRIZE this year seeks to inspire solutions to the issue of climate change by incentivizing the development of new and emerging CO2 conversation technologies. Described recently in a WEF [World Economic Forum] survey as the biggest potential threat to the economy in 2016, climate change has been targeted as a priority issue, and the XPRIZE has done a great deal to provide answers to the climate question.

Renowned for its role in bringing new and radical thought leaders into the public domain, the XPRIZE Board of Trustees include Elon Musk, James Cameron and Arianna Huffington and the prize never fails to attract the world’s brightest minds.

This year’s Carbon XPRIZE challenges participants including Ingenuity Lab and its Ingenuity Carbon Solutions team to reimagine the climate question by accelerating the development of technologies to convert CO2 into valuable products. Ingenuity Carbon Solutions and others will compete in a three-round competition for a total prize purse of $20m, with the winnings going towards the technology’s continued development.

I hope to hear more good news soon. Alberta could certainly do with some of that as it copes with Fort McMurray’s monstrous wildfire (more here in a NASA/ Goddard Space Flight Center May 9, 2016 news release on EurekAlert).

For anyone interesting Alberta’s ‘nano’ Ingenuity Lab, more can be found here.

New photocatalytic approach to cleaning wastewater from oil sands

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With oil sands in the title, this story had to mention the Canadian province of Alberta, which has been widely castigated and applauded for its oil extraction efforts in their massive oil sands field. A Nov. 24, 2015 news item on Nanotechnology Now describes a new technology for cleaning the wastewater from oil sands extraction processes,

Researchers have developed a process to remove contaminants from oil sands wastewater using only sunlight and nanoparticles that is more effective and inexpensive than conventional treatment methods.

Frank Gu, a professor in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Waterloo [in the province of Ontario] and Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology Engineering, is the senior researcher on the team that was the first to find that photocatalysis — a chemical reaction that involves the absorption of light by nanoparticles — can completely eliminate naphthenic acids in oil sands wastewater, and within hours. Naphthenic acids pose a threat to ecology and human health. Water in tailing ponds left to biodegrade naturally in the environment still contains these contaminants decades later.

A Nov. 23, 2015 University of Waterloo news release, which originated the news item, expands on the theme but doesn’t provide much in the way of technical detail,

“With about a billion tonnes of water stored in ponds in Alberta, removing naphthenic acids is one of the largest environmental challenges in Canada,” said Tim Leshuk, a PhD candidate in chemical engineering at Waterloo. He is the lead author of this paper and a recipient of the prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. “Conventional treatments people have tried either haven’t worked, or if they have worked, they’ve been far too impractical or expensive to solve the size of the problem. Waterloo’s technology is the first step of what looks like a very practical and green treatment method.”

Unlike treating polluted water with chlorine or membrane filtering, the Waterloo technology is energy-efficient and relatively inexpensive. Nanoparticles become extremely reactive when exposed to sunlight and break down the persistent pollutants in their individual atoms, completely removing them from the water. This treatment depends on only sunlight for energy, and the nanoparticles can be recovered and reused indefinitely.

Next steps for the Waterloo research include ensuring that the treated water meets all of the objectives Canadian environmental legislation and regulations required to ensure it can be safely discharged from sources larger than the samples, such as tailing ponds.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Solar photocatalytic degradation of naphthenic acids in oil sands process-affected water by Tim Leshuk, Timothy Wong, Stuart Linley, Kerry M. Peru, John V. Headley, Frank Gu. Chemosphere Volume 144, February 2016, Pages 1854–1861 doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2015.10.073

This paper is behind a paywall.

Ceapro (a Canadian biotech company) and its pressurized gas expanded technology with a mention of cellulose nanocrystals

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At the mention of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC), my interest was piqued. From a Nov. 10, 2015 news item on Nanotechnology Now,

Ceapro Inc. (TSX VENTURE:CZO) (“Ceapro” or the “Company”), a growth-stage biotechnology company focused on the development and commercialization of active ingredients for healthcare and cosmetic industries, announced that Bernhard Seifried, Ph.D., Ceapro’s Senior Research Scientist and a co-inventor of its proprietary Pressurized Gas Expanded Technology (PGX) will present this morning [Nov. 10, 2015] at the prestigious 2015 Composites at Lake Louise engineering conference.

A Nov. 10, 2015 Ceapro press release, which originated the news item, describes the technology in a little more detail and briefly mentions cellulose nanocrystals (Note: A link has been removed),

Dr. Seifried will make a podium presentation entitled, “PGX – Technology: A versatile technology for generating advanced biopolymer materials,” which will feature the unique advantages of Ceapro’s enabling technology for processing aqueous solutions or dispersions of high molecular weight biopolymers, such as starch, polysaccharides, gums, pectins or cellulose nanocrystals, into open-porous morphologies, consisting of nano-scale particles and pores.

Gilles Gagnon, M.Sc., MBA, President and CEO of Ceapro, stated, “Our disruptive PGX enabling technology facilitates biopolymer processing at a new level for generating unique highly porous biopolymer morphologies that can be impregnated with bioactives/APIs or functionalized with other biopolymers to generate exfoliated nano-composites and novel advanced material. We believe this technology will provide transformational solutions not only for our internal programs, but importantly, can be applied much more broadly for Companies with whom we intend to partner globally.”

Utilizing its PGX technology, Ceapro successfully produces its bioactive pharmaceutical grade powder formulation of beta glucan, which is an ingredient in a number of personal care cosmeceutical products as well as a therapeutic agent used for wound healing and a lubricative agent integrated into injectable systems used to treat conditions like urinary incontinence. The Company is developing its enabling PGX platform at the commercial scale level. In order to fully exploit the use of this innovative technology, Ceapro has recently decided to further expand its new world-class manufacturing facility by 10,000 square feet.

“The PGX platform generates unique morphologies that are not possible to produce with other conventional drying systems,” Mr. Gagnon continued. “The ultra-light, highly porous polymer structures produced with PGX have a huge potential for use in an abundant number of applications ranging from functional foods, nutraceuticals, drug delivery and cosmeceuticals, to advanced technical applications.”

Ceapro’s novel PGX Technology can be utilized for a wide variety of bio-industrial processing applications including:

Dry aqueous solutions or dispersions of polymers derived from agricultural and/or forestry feedstock, such as polysaccharides, gums, biopolymers at mild processing conditions (40⁰C).

Purify biopolymers by removing lipids, salts, sugars and other contaminants, impurities and odours during the precipitation and drying process.

Micronize the polymer to a matrix consisting of highly porous fibrils or spherical particles having nano-scale features depending on polymer molecular structure.

Functionalize the polymer matrix by generating exfoliated nano-composites of various polymers forming fibers and/or spheres simply by mixing various aqueous polymer solutions/dispersions prior to PGX processing.

Impregnate the polymer matrix homogeneously with thermo-sensitive bioactives and/or hydrophobic modifiers to tune solubility of the final polymer bioactive matrix all in the same processing equipment at mild conditions (40⁰C).

Extract valuable bioactives at mild conditions from fermentation slurries, while drying the residual biomass.

The highly tune-able PGX process can generate exfoliated nano-composites and highly porous morphologies ranging from sub-micron particles (50nm) to micron-sized granules (2mm), as well as micro- and nanofibrils, granules, fine powders and aerogels with porosities of >99% and specific surface areas exceeding 300 m2/gram. The technology is based on a spray drying method, operating at mild temperatures (40°C) and moderate pressures (100-200 bar) utilizing PGX liquids, which is comprised of a mixture of food grade, recyclable solvents, generally regarded as safe (GRAS), such as pressurized carbon dioxide and anhydrous ethanol. The unique properties of PGX liquids afford single phase conditions and very low or vanishing interfacial tension during the spraying process. This then allows the generation of extremely fine particle morphologies with high porosity and a large specific surface area resulting in favorable solubilisation properties. This platform drying technology has been successfully scaled up from lab scale to pilot scale with a processing capacity of about 200 kg/hr of aqueous solutions.

Ceapro is based in Edmonton in the province of Alberta. This is a province with a CNC (cellulose nanocrytals) pilot production plant as I noted in my Nov. 10, 2013 posting where I belatedly mentioned the plant’s September 2013 commissioning date. The plant was supposed to have had a grand opening in 2014 according to a Sept. 12, 2013 Alberta Innovates Technology Futures [AITF] news release,

“Alberta Innovates-Technology Futures is proud to host and operate Western Canada’s only CNC pilot plant,” said Stephen Lougheed, AITF’s President and CEO. “Today’s commissioning is an important milestone in our ongoing efforts to provide technological know-how to our research and industry partners in their continued applied R&D and commercialization efforts. We’re able to provide researchers with more CNC than ever before, thereby accelerating the development of commercial applications.”

Members of Alberta’s and Western Canada’s growing CNC communities of expertise and interest spent the afternoon exploring potential commercial applications for the cellulose-based ‘wonder material.’

The CNC Pilot Plant’s Grand Opening is planned for 2014. [emphasis mine]

I have not been able to find any online trace of the plant’s grand opening. But I did find a few things. The AITF website has a page dedicated to CNC and its pilot plant and there’s a slide show about CNC and occupational health and safety from members of Alberta’s CNC Pilot Plant Research Team for their project, which started in 2014.

No mention in the Alberta media materials is ever made of CelluForce, a CNC production plant in the province of Québec, which predates the Alberta plant by more than 18 months (my Dec. 15, 2011 posting).

One last comment, CNC or cellulose nanocrystals are sometimes called nanocrystalline cellulose or NCC. This is a result of Canadians who were leaders at the time naming the substance NCC but over time researchers and producers from other countries have favoured the term CNC. Today (2015), the NCC term has been trademarked by Celluforce.

Open access week (Oct. 19 – 25, 2015)

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In the better late than never category I’m developing for this blog (why can’t I stumble across these things in a more timely fashion?): Canadian Science Publishing (CSP) is celebrating International Open Access Week (Oct. 19 -25, 2015). While the opening event will be past by the time you read this, CSP offers other opportunities to participate (from an Oct. 19, 2015 posting on the Canadian Science Publishing blog),

We’ll be celebrating open access all week, starting with a joint event today [link removed for Oct. 19, 2015 event] at the University of Ottawa Library where we’ll hear from Dr. Jules Blais, founding Senior Editor of our new multidisciplinary open access journal, FACETS. … Can’t make it to the event? Don’t worry, we’ll be live tweeting [link removed since the event will be over by the time you read this] and you still have the chance to enter into a draw to win a free e-reader. All you have to do is sign-up for the FACETS newsletter before Friday [Oct. 23, 2015] at midnight [EST?]. Not only will you have the chance to win a great prize, but by signing up for the newsletter you’ll also be the first to know about any FACETS-related news including information about open access, calls for submissions, newly available open access articles and more.

Considering this is open access week, we’d also like to take this opportunity to highlight our open access products and services. …

Introducing CSP Open

To keep things simple, we’ve collected all of our open access products, services and information in one handy place: www.cspopen.com. On this hub page you’ll find links to our fully OA journals, FACETS and Arctic Science. You’ll also find information about OpenArticle, our gold open access option for our subscription-based journals.

There is a listing of other 2015 Open Access Week events in Canada here but I notice it’s not exhaustive. For example, the Canadian Science Publishing/University of Ottawa event was not listed yesterday, Oct. 19, 2015, when I checked. Most of the action appears to be taking place in Alberta and Ontario.

FrogHeart

Commentary about nanotech, science policy and communication, society, and the arts

Tag Archives: Alberta

Artificial intelligence (AI) company (in Montréal, Canada) attracts $135M in funding from Microsoft, Intel, Nvidia and others

Science policy for subnational constituencies such as a province or a territory (e.g. Canada & its provinces) or a state (e.g United States)

Key Findings

Nano scene in Alberta: world’s smallest National Hockey League logo and $!.7M for oil spill mesh

nano tech 2017 being held in Tokyo from February 15-17, 2017

Understanding nanotechnology with Timbits; a peculiarly Canadian explanation

Bob McDonald: How is Canada on the ‘forefront of pushing nanotechnology forward’?

Alberta’s Ingenuity Lab opens new facility in India and competes in the Carbon XPRIZE

New photocatalytic approach to cleaning wastewater from oil sands

Ceapro (a Canadian biotech company) and its pressurized gas expanded technology with a mention of cellulose nanocrystals

Open access week (Oct. 19 – 25, 2015)

Introducing CSP Open