Posts Tagged ‘solar cells’

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Solar cells made even more leaflike with inclusion of nanocellulose fibers

Tuesday, March 26th, 2013

Researchers at the US Georgia  Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)  and Purdue University (Indiana) have used cellulose nanocrystals (CNC), which is also known as nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC), to create solar cells that have greater efficiency and can be recycled. From the Mar. 26, 2013 news item on Nanowerk,

Georgia Institute of Technology and Purdue University researchers have developed efficient solar cells using natural substrates derived from plants such as trees. Just as importantly, by fabricating them on cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) substrates, the solar cells can be quickly recycled in water at the end of their lifecycle.

The Georgia Tech Mar. 25, 2013 news release, which originated the news item,

The researchers report that the organic solar cells reach a power conversion efficiency of 2.7 percent, an unprecedented figure for cells on substrates derived from renewable raw materials. The CNC substrates on which the solar cells are fabricated are optically transparent, enabling light to pass through them before being absorbed by a very thin layer of an organic semiconductor. During the recycling process, the solar cells are simply immersed in water at room temperature. Within only minutes, the CNC substrate dissolves and the solar cell can be separated easily into its major components.

Georgia Tech College of Engineering Professor Bernard Kippelen led the study and says his team’s project opens the door for a truly recyclable, sustainable and renewable solar cell technology.

“The development and performance of organic substrates in solar technology continues to improve, providing engineers with a good indication of future applications,” said Kippelen, who is also the director of Georgia Tech’s Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics (COPE). “But organic solar cells must be recyclable. Otherwise we are simply solving one problem, less dependence on fossil fuels, while creating another, a technology that produces energy from renewable sources but is not disposable at the end of its lifecycle.”

To date, organic solar cells have been typically fabricated on glass or plastic. Neither is easily recyclable, and petroleum-based substrates are not very eco-friendly. For instance, if cells fabricated on glass were to break during manufacturing or installation, the useless materials would be difficult to dispose of. Paper substrates are better for the environment, but have shown limited performance because of high surface roughness or porosity. However, cellulose nanomaterials made from wood are green, renewable and sustainable. The substrates have a low surface roughness of only about two nanometers.

“Our next steps will be to work toward improving the power conversion efficiency over 10 percent, levels similar to solar cells fabricated on glass or petroleum-based substrates,” said Kippelen. The group plans to achieve this by optimizing the optical properties of the solar cell’s electrode.

The news release also notes the impact that using cellulose nanomaterials could have economically,

There’s also another positive impact of using natural products to create cellulose nanomaterials. The nation’s forest product industry projects that tens of millions of tons of them could be produced once large-scale production begins, potentially in the next five years.

One might almost  suspect that the forest products industry is experiencing financial difficulty.

The researchers’ paper was published by Scientific Reports, an open access journal from the Nature Publishing Group,

Recyclable organic solar cells on cellulose nanocrystal substrates by Yinhua Zhou, Canek Fuentes-Hernandez, Talha M. Khan, Jen-Chieh Liu, James Hsu, Jae Won Shim, Amir Dindar, Jeffrey P. Youngblood, Robert J. Moon, & Bernard Kippelen. Scientific Reports  3, Article number: 1536  doi:10.1038/srep01536 Published 25 March 2013

In closing, the news release notes that a provisional patent has been filed at the US Patent Office.And one final note, I have previously commented on how confusing the reported power conversion rates are. You’ll find a recent comment in my Mar. 8, 2013 posting about Ted Sargent’s work with colloidal quantum dots and solar cells.

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A ‘wandering meatloaf’ with teeth inspires nanomaterials for solar cells and Li-ion batteries

Thursday, January 17th, 2013

The ‘wandering meatloaf’ is a species of marine snail (or chiton) that has extraordinary teeth according to the Jan. 16, 2013 news item on ScienceDaily,

An assistant professor [David Kisailus] at the University of California, Riverside’s Bourns College of Engineering is using the teeth of a marine snail found off the coast of California to create less costly and more efficient nanoscale materials to improve solar cells and lithium-ion batteries.

…

The paper is focused on the gumboot chiton, the largest type of chiton, which can be up to a foot-long. They are found along the shores of the Pacific Ocean from central California to Alaska. They have a leathery upper skin, which is usually reddish-brown and occasionally orange, leading some to give it the nickname “wandering meatloaf.”

Over time, chitons have evolved to eat algae growing on and within rocks using a specialized rasping organ called a radula, a conveyer belt-like structure in the mouth that contains 70 to 80 parallel rows of teeth. During the feeding process, the first few rows of the teeth are used to grind rock to get to the algae. They become worn, but new teeth are continuously produced and enter the “wear zone” at the same rate as teeth are shed.

The University of California Riverside Jan. 15, 2013 news release by Sean Nealon, which originated the news item, describes the chiton’s teeth and the specifics of Kisailus’ inspiration (Note: A link has been removed),

Over time, chitons have evolved to eat algae growing on and within rocks using a specialized rasping organ called a radula, a conveyer belt-like structure in the mouth that contains 70 to 80 parallel rows of teeth. During the feeding process, the first few rows of the teeth are used to grind rock to get to the algae. They become worn, but new teeth are continuously produced and enter the “wear zone” at the same rate as teeth are shed.

Kisailus, who uses nature as inspiration to design next generation engineering products and materials, started studying chitons five years ago because he was interested in abrasion and impact-resistant materials. He has previously determined that the chiton teeth contain the hardest biomineral known on Earth, magnetite, which is the key mineral that not only makes the tooth hard, but also magnetic.

…

Kisailus is using the lessons learned from this biomineralization pathway as inspiration in his lab to guide the growth of minerals used in solar cells and lithium-ion [li-ion] batteries. By controlling the crystal size, shape and orientation of engineering nanomaterials, he believes he can build materials that will allow the solar cells and lithium-ion batteries to operate more efficiently. In other words, the solar cells will be able to capture a greater percentage of sunlight and convert it to electricity more efficiently and the lithium-ion batteries could need significantly less time to recharge.

Using the chiton teeth model has another advantage: engineering nanocrystals can be grown at significantly lower temperatures, which means significantly lower production costs.

While Kisailus is focused on solar cells and lithium-ion batteries, the same techniques could be used to develop everything from materials for car and airplane frames to abrasion resistant clothing. In addition, understanding the formation and properties of the chiton teeth could help to create better design parameters for better oil drills and dental drill bits.

Here’s a representation of the teeth from the University of California Riverside,

A series of images that show the teeth of the gumboot chiton (aka, snail, aka, wandering meatloaf)

A series of images that show the teeth of the gumboot chiton (aka, snail, aka, wandering meatloaf)

You can find other images and media materials in the ScienceDaily news item or the University of California Riverside news release. This citation and link for the research paper is from the ScienceDaily news item,

Qianqian Wang, Michiko Nemoto, Dongsheng Li, James C. Weaver, Brian Weden, John Stegemeier, Krassimir N. Bozhilov, Leslie R. Wood, Garrett W. Milliron, Christopher S. Kim, Elaine DiMasi, David Kisailus. Phase Transformations and Structural Developments in the Radular Teeth ofCryptochiton Stelleri. Advanced Functional Materials, 2013; DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201202894

This article is behind a paywall.

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Spinach + Silicon = Green Power

Wednesday, September 5th, 2012

I wouldn’t expect that anyone will be turning their spinach salads into hybrid solar cells anytime soon despite what scientists at Vanderbilt University (Tennessee) have achieved. From the Sept. 4, 2012 news release on EurekAlert,

An interdisciplinary team of researchers at Vanderbilt University have developed a way to combine the photosynthetic protein that converts light into electrochemical energy in spinach with silicon, the material used in solar cells, in a fashion that produces substantially more electrical current than has been reported by previous “biohybrid” solar cells.

Here’s an illustration of the concept provided by Vanderbilt University,

(Julie Turner/Vanderbilt)

According to the Sept. 4, 2012 Vanderbilt University news release , the researchers were trying exploit a feature of a protein found in spinach (and other plants),

More than 40 years ago, scientists discovered that one of the proteins involved in photosynthesis, called Photosystem 1 (PS1), continued to function when it was extracted from plants like spinach. Then they determined PS1 converts sunlight into electrical energy with nearly 100 percent efficiency, compared to conversion efficiencies of less than 40 percent achieved by manmade devices. This prompted various research groups around the world to begin trying to use PS1 to create more efficient solar cells.

…

When a PS1 protein exposed to light, it absorbs the energy in the photons and uses it to free electrons and transport them to one side of the protein. That creates regions of positive charge, called holes, which move to the opposite side of the protein.

In a leaf, all the PS1 proteins are aligned. But in the protein layer on the device, individual proteins are oriented randomly. Previous modeling work indicated that this was a major problem. When the proteins are deposited on a metallic substrate, those that are oriented in one direction provide electrons that the metal collects while those that are oriented in the opposite direction pull electrons out of the metal in order to fill the holes that they produce. As a result, they produce both positive and negative currents that cancel each other out to leave a very small net current flow.

The problem with using a metallic substrate was addressed by using and ‘doping’ silicon (from the Vanderbilt University news release),

The Vanderbilt researchers report that their PS1/silicon combination produces nearly a milliamp (850 microamps) of current per square centimeter at 0.3 volts. That is nearly two and a half times more current than the best level reported previously from a biohybrid cell. The reason this combo works so well is because the electrical properties of the silicon substrate have been tailored to fit those of the PS1 molecule. This is done by implanting electrically charge atoms in the silicon to alter its electrical properties: a process called “doping.” In this case, the protein worked extremely well with silicon doped with positive charges and worked poorly with negatively doped silicon.

To make the device, the researchers extracted PS1 from spinach into an aqueous solution and poured the mixture on the surface of a p-doped silicon wafer. Then they put the wafer in a vacuum chamber in order to evaporate the water away leaving a film of protein. They found that the optimum thickness was about one micron, about 100 PS1 molecules thick.

Here’s a graph illustrating the improvement (larger version available here),

Graph shows the dramatic increase in electrical current that Vanderbilt researchers have managed to produce from biohybrid solar cells. (Courtesy of Cliffel Lab/Vanderbilt University)

Encouraging news overall but the researchers still have more work to do (from the Vanderbilt University news release),

This combination produces current levels almost 1,000 times higher than we were able to achieve by depositing the protein on various types of metals. It also produces a modest increase in voltage,” said David Cliffel, associate professor of chemistry, who collaborated on the project with Kane Jennings, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering.

“If we can continue on our current trajectory of increasing voltage and current levels, we could reach the range of mature solar conversion technologies in three years.”

The researchers’ next step is to build a functioning PS1-silicon solar cell using this new design. Jennings has an Environmental Protection Agency award that will allow a group of undergraduate engineering students to build the prototype. The students won the award at the National Sustainable Design Expo in April based on a solar panel that they had created using a two-year old design. With the new design, Jennings estimates that a two-foot panel could put out at least 100 milliamps at one volt – enough to power a number of different types of small electrical devices.

So, our solar cells are going to become more and more plantlike? I can certainly see the appeal if it means minimizing dependency on “rare and expensive materials like platinum or indium” as per the Vanderbilt University news release.

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Using your microwave for DIY (do it yourself) solar panels?

Monday, August 27th, 2012

The researchers at Oregon State University seem to think that their discovery will scale up to commercial levels for manufacturing solar panels that are cheaper and easier. Still, if all you need is a microwave, then I imagine some enterprising do-it-yourselfer will give this technique a try.

Microwave oven

This microwave oven technology is being used to produce solar cells with less energy, expense and environmental concerns. (Photo courtesy of Oregon State University Copied from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oregonstateuniversity/7841150094/in/photostream)

From the Aug. 24, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

The same type of microwave oven technology that most people use to heat up leftover food has found an important application in the solar energy industry, providing a new way to make thin-film photovoltaic products with less energy, expense and environmental concerns.

Engineers at Oregon State University have for the first time developed a way to use microwave heating in the synthesis of copper zinc tin sulfide, a promising solar cell compound that is less costly and toxic than some solar energy alternatives.

The Oregon State University Aug. 24, 2012 news release which originated the news item provides additional detail about the technology and future plans for commercializing it,

“All of the elements used in this new compound are benign and inexpensive, and should have good solar cell performance,” said Greg Herman, an associate professor in the School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering at OSU.

“Several companies are already moving in this direction as prices continue to rise for some alternative compounds that contain more expensive elements like indium,” he said. “With some improvements in its solar efficiency this new compound should become very commercially attractive.”

These thin-film photovoltaic technologies offer a low cost, high volume approach to manufacturing solar cells. A new approach is to create them as an ink composed of nanoparticles, which could be rolled or sprayed – by approaches such as old-fashioned inkjet printing – to create solar cells. [emphasis mine]

To further streamline that process, researchers have now succeeded in using microwave heating, instead of conventional heating, to reduce reaction times to minutes or seconds, and allow for great control over the production process. This “one-pot” synthesis is fast, cheap and uses less energy, researchers say, and has been utilized to successfully create nanoparticle inks that were used to fabricate a photovoltaic device.

From a do-it-yourself point of view, this technology sounds even more promising with the mention of an inkjet printer.

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Nanomaterials and energy storage talk at Vancouver’s (Canada) Café Scientifique on July 31, 2012

Monday, July 30th, 2012

The Tuesday, July 31, 2012 talk for the local (Vancouver, Canada) Café Scientifique will be given by Dr. Michael O. Wolf, a chemist at the University of British Columbia. The talk is schedule for  7:30 pm at the Railway Club, 579 Dunsmuir St., 2nd floor andWolf’s topic is,

How nanomaterials can be used to change the way we collect and store energy in the future.
Growing global energy demands and the potential for environmental catastrophe require a dramatic shift in how we obtain and utilize energy. The vast majority of energy currently used by humans is produced by combustion of fossil fuels.  Fossil fuel consumption is driving significant increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, threatening the planet with mass extinctions, starvation, and rising sea levels. With global energy demands projected to increase by 50% in the next 25 years, the rapid development of renewable “clean” energy sources, as well as methods to store this energy and harness it, are needed.  This talk will explore how a special class of substances called nanomaterials offer the potential of breakthroughs in solar energy harvesing and energy storage.

Wolf’s research page is here and the Wolf Research Group page is here.

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Windows as solar cells using carbon nanotubes from Australia

Tuesday, March 20th, 2012

It’s not a brand new idea (windows as solar cells) as the folks at Flinders University (Adelaide, South Australia) might have you believe but it’s the first time I can recall coming across a reference to carbon nanotubes and ‘solar cell’ windows. From the March 20, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

As part of his just-completed PhD, Dr Mark Bissett [photograph with Nanowerk news item] from the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences [Flinders University] has developed a revolutionary solar cell using carbon nanotubes.

A promising alternative to traditional silicon-based solar cells, carbon nanotubes are cheaper to make and more efficient to use than their energy-sapping, silicon counterparts.

…

“The overall efficiency of silicon solar cells are about 10 per cent and even when they’re operating at optimal efficiency it could take eight to 15 years to make back the energy that it took to produce them in the first place because they’re produced using fossil fuels,” he said.

Dr Bissett said the new, low-cost carbon nanotubes are transparent, meaning they can be “sprayed” onto windows without blocking light, and they are also flexible so they can be weaved into a range of materials including fabric – a concept that is already being explored by advertising companies.

While the amount of power generated by solar windows would not be enough to completely offset the energy consumption of a standard office building, Dr Bissett said they still had many financial and environmental advantages.

“In a new building, or one where the windows are being replaced anyway, adding transparent solar cells to the glass would be a relatively small cost since the cost of the glass, frames and installation would be the same with or without the solar component,” Dr Bissett said.

The researchers are suggesting that this technology could be in the marketplace in 10 years.

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A whispering gallery for light not sound

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

Whispering galleries are always popular with all ages. I know that because I can never get enough time in them as I jostle with seniors, children, young adults, etc. For most humans, the magic of having someone across from you on the other side of the room sound as if they’re beside you whispering in your ear is ever fresh.

It’s the roundness of the space, which gives it that special acoustic quality. Taking their inspiration from whispering galleries, engineers at Stanford University have created hollow nanoshell ‘whispering galleries’ for light rather than sound. From the Feb. 7, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

The engineers call their spheres nanoshells. Producing the shells takes a bit of engineering magic. The researchers first create tiny balls of silica — the same stuff glass is made of — and coat them with a layer of silicon. They then etch away the glass center using hydrofluoric acid that does not affect the silicon, leaving behind the all-important light-sensitive shell. These shells form optical whispering galleries that capture and recirculate the light.

“The light gets trapped inside the nanoshells,” said Yi Cui, associate professor of materials science engineering at Stanford and a senior author of the paper. “It circulates round and round rather than passing through and this is very desirable for solar applications.”

The researchers estimate that light circulates around the circumference of the shells a few times during which energy from the light gets absorbed gradually by the silicon. The longer they can keep the light in the material, the better the absorption will be.

“This is a new approach to broadband light absorption. The use of whispering-gallery resonant modes inside nanoshells is very exciting,” said Yan Yao, a post-doctoral researcher in the Cui Lab and a co-lead author of the paper. “It not only can lead to better solar cells, but it can be applied in other areas where efficient light absorption is important, such as solar fuels and photodetectors.”

The nanoshells look like this,

A scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of a single layer of nanocrystalline-silicon shells. The hollow shell structure improves light absorption while reducing the cost and weight of the device. Image: Yan Yao

Andrew Meyers’ Feb. 2012 article for Stanford University’s School of Engineering notes that improved light absorption isn’t the only advantage to this ‘whispering-gallery resonant mode’ technique,

Having demonstrated improved absorption, the engineers went on to show how their clever structure will pay dividends beyond the mere trapping of light.

First, nanoshells can be made quickly. “A micron-thick flat film of solid nanocrystalline-silicon can take a few hours to deposit, while nanoshells achieving similar light absorption take just minutes,” said Yan.

The nanoshell structure likewise uses substantially less material, one-twentieth that of solid nanocrystalline-silicon.

“A twentieth of the material, of course, costs one-twentieth and weighs one-twentieth what a solid layer does,” said Jie. “This might allow us to cost effectively produce better-performing solar cells of rare or expensive materials.”

“The solar film in our paper is made of relatively abundant silicon, but down the road, the reduction in materials afforded by nanoshells could prove important to scaling up the manufacturing of many types of thin film cells, such as those which use rarer materials like tellurium and indium” said Vijay Narasimhan, a doctoral candidate in the Cui Lab and co-author of the paper.

Finally, the nanoshells are relatively indifferent to the angle of incoming light and the layers are thin enough that they can bend and twist without damage. These factors might open up an array of new applications in situations where achieving optimal incoming angle of the sun is not always possible. Imagine solar sails on the high seas or photovoltaic clothing for mountain climbing.

The researchers’ paper was published in Nature Communications and the authors include: Shanhui Fan, a professor of electrical engineering, Yi Cui, associate professor of materials science engineering, Yan Yao, a post-doctoral researcher in the Cui Lab, Vijay Narasimhan, a doctoral candidate in the Cui Lab, and Jie Yao, a post-doctoral researcher in the Cui Lab.

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Picosun Oy and atomic layer deposition (ALD)

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

Finnish company, Picosun Oy, reports in a Jan. 2, 2012 news item on Nanowerk about a successful research project on solar cells undertaken as part of the European Union 7th Framework Programme. From the news item on Nanowerk,

… The goal of this multinational, inter-European, three years (2009-2011) project combining the efforts of both scientific and industrial partners has been to dramatically increase the efficiency of solar cells and reduce the costs of their manufacturing. This has been achieved with novel, innovative, silicon nanorod based concept. The amount of active photovoltaic material (Si) can be significantly reduced by growing the light-trapping nanorod “forests” (thickness from < 1µm to a few µm at most) on cheaper substrates such as glass or flexible foils. …

An ultrathin ALD-deposited Al2O3 film serves ideally this purpose, and the gas-phase, surface-controlled and self-limiting nature of the ALD process ensures that even the deepest and narrowest between-the-rods nooks and crannies will be reliably covered with 100 % uniform, conformal and pinhole- and defect-free passivation film. Another central cell component where ALD has shown its indispensability is the transparent conductive oxide (TCO) layer that works as the current collector on the top of the cell. Different TCO deposition methods were investigated in the course of the project, and ALD turned out to be the ideal method regarding both the TCO film quality and the scalability of the technique, due to Picosun’s fast, efficient and easy-to-use HVM (High Volume Manufacturing) batch ALD system, which was developed specifically during the project ROD-SOL.

“Solar photovoltaics still remains one of the fastest growing industries in the world. To enable more efficient utilization of this free, clean energy, the efficiencies of the solar cells have to increase and their manufacturing costs decrease. ROD-SOL’s silicon nanorod cell concept shows promising potential to this, and we at Picosun have been especially satisfied of the ALD’s central role in realizing this novel, innovative, high efficiency solar electricity converter”, states Picosun’s Managing Director Juhana Kostamo.

More technical details are available in the news item on Nanowerk. I last wrote about Picosun Oy in a July 11, 2011 posting about a collaboration between the company and Carleton University researchers Sean Barry and Jason Coyle on a technique for plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition.

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University of Toronto team establishes principle of energy alignment in breakthrough for sustainable technologies

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

It’s all about aligning energy but it has nothing to do with massage, alternative medicine, or discussions about planetary energy alignments. According to the Nov. 6, 2011 news item on Nanowerk,

University of Toronto materials science and engineering (MSE) researchers have demonstrated for the first time the key mechanism behind how energy levels align in a critical group of advanced materials. This discovery is a significant breakthrough in the development of sustainable technologies such as dye-sensitized solar cells and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs).

…

In research published today in Nature Materials, MSE PhD Candidate Mark T. Greiner and Professor Zheng-Hong Lu, Canada Research Chair (Tier I) in Organic Optoelectronics, lay out the blueprint that conclusively establishes the principle of energy alignment at the interface between transition metal oxides and organic molecules.

The article (Universal energy-level alignment of molecules on metal oxides) is behind a paywall but you can view the abstract and some figures. Congratulations to Mark Greiner and Professor Zheng-Hong Lu.

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University of Toronto, KAUST, Pennsylvania State University and quantum colloidal dots

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

I’ve written about colloidal quantum dot solar cells and University of Toronto professor Ted Sargent’s work before (June 28, 2011). He and his team have been busy again. From the Sept. 18, 2011 news item on Nanowerk,

Researchers from the University of Toronto (U of T), King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) and Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) have created the most efficient colloidal quantum dot (CQD) solar cell ever.

The discovery is reported in the latest issue of Nature Materials.

The first time (June 28)  I wrote about the colloidal quantum dot (CQD) solar cells, the team had made a breakthrough with the architecture of the solar cell by creating what they called a ‘graded recombination layer’ allowing infrared and visible light harvesters to be linked without compromising either layer. The next time I wrote about Sargent’s work  (July 11, 2011),  it concerned self-assembling quantum dots and DNA.

The very latest work is focussed on making the CQD solar cells more efficient by packing them closer together,

Until now, quantum dots have been capped with organic molecules that separate the nanoparticles by a nanometer. On the nanoscale, that is a long distance for electrons to travel.

To solve this problem, the researchers utilized inorganic ligands, sub-nanometer-sized atoms that bind to the surfaces of the quantum dots and take up less space. The combination of close packing and charge trap elimination enabled electrons to move rapidly and smoothly through the solar cells, thus providing record efficiency.

I gather this last breakthrough has made commercialization possible,

As a result of the potential of this research discovery, a technology licensing agreement has been signed by U of T and KAUST, brokered by MaRS Innovations (MI), which will enable the global commercialization of this new technology.

Here’s the competitive advantage that a CQD solar cell offers,

Quantum dots are nanoscale semiconductors that capture light and convert it into electrical energy. Because of their small scale, the dots can be sprayed onto flexible surfaces, including plastics. This enables the production of solar cells that are less expensive than the existing silicon-based version.

Congratulations!

There are more details about this latest breakthrough both in the Nanowerk news item and in this University of Toronto Sept.19, 2011 news release credited to Liam Mitchell. For anyone who’s curious about MaRS, it’s located in Toronto, Ontario and seems to be some sort of technology company incubator or here’s how they describe themselves (from their How did MaRS get started page?),

A charitable organization could be created to better connect the worlds of science, business and government. A public-private partnership with a mission to remove the barriers between silos. Nurture a culture of innovation. And help create global enterprises that would contribute to Canada’s economic and social development.

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