Currently, different types of plastic are sorted through processes that are partially automated; however, they still rely heavily on manual sorting on the line. This process is slow and has a low yield making it economically unviable. The overall goal for the project is to design a model of a continuous or semi-continuous multi-stage plastic sorting process of the following types of recycled plastics for resale: polyethylene (PE - LDPE, PET), polypropylene (PP) and polystyrene (PS).

Partner Organization/Industry or Government Mentor: Jaesun Suh

Faculty Advisor: Professor Tizazu Mekonnen

In light of Canada's ban on single-use plastics, our team has designed a low-cost, biodegradable replacement for disposable cutlery. We have developed a novel wood-plastic made of wood sawdust and PLA. We have designed a manufacturing process to mass-produce the material into cutlery for the food services industry.

Faculty Advisor: Professor Tizazu Mekonnen

Current carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is energy-consuming and expensive, thus making them unappealing to be adapted from an industrial perspective. The scope of this project is to mitigate carbon emission through the optimization of a commercial-scale chemical looping combustion (CLC) model within Python optimization toolbox.

Faculty Advisor: Professor Luis Ricardez Sandoval

Modern pharmaceutical manufacturing requires a high level of performance in operations, safety and economics that can be met by innovations in fault detection and diagnostics. Due to the high nonlinearity of these processes, more sophisticated models are required to monitor and control them. Using a Penicillin fed-batch process as a case study and deep learning, a fault detection and diagnosis model was developed. This model was used further for process optimization and increasing profitability.

Partner Organization/Industry or Government Mentor: Sartorius

Faculty Advisor: Professor Hector Budman

We are designing a biogas processing system to convert livestock waste to usable cooking fuel for developing communities in Nicaragua. Our goal is to produce enough clean cooking fuel for thirty households (approximately 214 MWh of energy per year). We will deliver a system model in Aspen and complete equipment selection for the entire process. Additionally, we will conduct economic feasibility studies and risk analysis for the process.

Faculty Advisor: Professor Michael Pope