Clean Technology & Environmental Systems
Clean Technology & Environmental Systems encompasses clean fuels, smart grid power systems, energy utilization, alternative energy systems, energy conservation, and environmental system monitoring and modelling.
Learn more about the Western Economic Diversification funded Clean Tech Hub that promotes clean technologies that convert carbon-based additives and components into new, sustainable products.
Research Themes
Flow dynamics and turbulence to improve performance and efficiency, drag reduction in turbulent flow, advanced nanofabrication, renewable energy storage, and solar energy conversion.
Develop new devices to measure pathogens in water; study the microbial ecology in engineered systems such as wastewater treatment plants; develop methods to prevent the microbial contribution to acid rock drainage and new techniques to measure pathogens such as Cryptosporidium in natural water samples.
Design, simulation and process performance evaluation of bioreactor technologies for macro-and micro-pollutant removal in municipal wastewater and biosolids. Design anaerobic digestion processes with thermal, mechanical, and ultrasound pretreatments for enhanced biogas generation, reactor volume reduction and resource recovery, and anammox side-stream process for nutrient removal.
Design, analysis, operation, management, and rehabilitation of water distribution systems from hydraulic and water quality points of views. Use combined physicochemical and biological processes to remove drinking water contaminants such as nitrate and perchlorate from municipal water supplies.
Develop and integrate sensors into gas and water systems. Semiconductor coupled with selective microfluidic diffusion channels. Multifunctional polymeric nanocomposites with electrical, gas sensing, thermal, mechanical, optical and thermoelectric properties.
Develop technologies to identify and mitigate geohazards affecting urban development, transportation corridors, mines, dams, and pipelines. Stability assessment and stabilization of surface and underground excavations in rocks. Characterization of problematic soils/tailings, engineered barriers for radioactive waste containment systems.
Develop novel and pragmatic approaches for sustainability and environmental performance assessment. Conduct both micro and macro level life cycle assessments for engineering products and services.
Assess sustainable solid waste treatment technologies including conventional and advanced anaerobic digestion, composting, recycling, landfilling, waste-to-energy, sustainable waste management practices and policies, and innovative waste to product technologies.
Develop technical bases for incorporating the triple-bottom-line sustainability principles, i.e. environmental protection, economic prosperity, and social well-being, to achieve sustainable urban development using interdisciplinary knowledge of the re-design, construction, operation, and maintenance of the built environment and its main resource streams.
Faculty Researchers
Morad Abdelaziz – Assistant Professor
Smart grids, renewable energy, distributed generation, HPC applications for power systems and the integration of an electrified transport systems within electrical grids.
Abdulbaset Ali – Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Applying computer vision to shipping industry.
Joshua Brinkerhoff – Assistant Professor
Understanding flow dynamics and turbulence to improve performance and efficiency in aerospace, nuclear, and gas industries.
Wilson Eberle – Associate Professor
Enabling technology for advanced energy applications through power electronics. Developing power conversion and smart-grid technologies for advanced industrial energy applications.
Cigdem Eskicioglu – Professor
Development of waste reduction and resource recovery methods through advanced bioprocesses and micropollutant removal.
Mahmudur Fatmi – Assistant Professor
Transportation engineering & planning including travel behaviour analysis, land use interaction, activity-based modelling, econometric methods & agent-based microsimulation.
Alyse Kiesser– Assistant Professor
Integrating a systems ecology approach with big data science to uncover how microbial metabolic interactions underlie the stability and processes robustness of both natural and engineered microbial ecosystems.
Kasun Hewage – Professor
Life cycle thinking in built environment including water-energy-carbon nexus, energy efficient buildings, construction waste management, and life cycle assessment and costing in engineering products and processes.
Hirushie Pramuditha Karunathilake – Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Renewable energy integration in urban systems
Sina Kheirkhah – Assistant Professor
Through design improvements, technology, tools and knowledge helping large-scale power generation industries mitigate combustion instabilities. Building next generation combustion engines.
Jian Liu – Assistant Professor
Advanced nanofabrication, atomic/molecular layer deposition, renewable energy storage and conversion, Li-ion and next-generation batteries (Li-S, Na-ion, all-solid-state) for transportation and stationary applications.
Gordon Lovegrove – Associate Professor
Inter-disciplinary policy, infrastructure and vehicle research to sustain global community quality of life, including new tools for active transport, safety planning, Hydrail retrofits, and SMARTer growth development patterns.
Sepideh Pakpour – Assistant Professor
Foundations of healthy buildings: ventilation, indoor air quality (IAQ), dust & pests, moisture; indirectly related to thermal health, safety & security, water quality, noise, lighting and views.
Nicolás Peleato – Assistant Professor
Advanced characterization of organic matter for evaluation of drinking water treatment processes and assessment of source water quality. Development of low-cost pre-treatment methods to effectively mitigate membrane fouling.
Rehan Sadiq – Professor
Drinking water quality modelling, environmental risk assessment, lifecycle thinking and decision-making.
Amin Mohammadpour Shotorbani – Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Nonlinear control methods, operation and stability of power and energy systems, electrical energy management systems, smart grid, microgrids, and renewable integration systems.
Gyan Chhipi Shrestha – Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Human health and environmental risk analysis, urban water management, water-energy nexus, carbon capturing technologies, life cycle analysis, and decision analysis.
Alexander Uhl – Assistant Professor
Developing printed photovoltaics, tandem solar cells and photoelectrochemical devices (PECs) for clean electricity and solar fuels.
Klaske van Heusden – Assistant Professor
Data-driven and learning control; system identification; control of robotics and mechatronic systems; emerging applications in agriculture and health care
Liwei Wang – Assistant Professor
Power system analysis, electrical machine and drives, power electronic converter design, control and topology, utility power electronics applications, HVDC and FACTS, renewable energy sources, and distributed generation.
Wenbo Zheng – Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Geomechanics applied to deep earth energy extraction and subsurface infrastructure