News

Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering

class
            Capstone Design and Competition 2010

Capstone 2010 Design Competition

Winners of the 2010 Capstone Design Competition in Sarnia have been announced!

First Prize has been awarded to the team of Mira Pavan, Dominik Seepersad and Thomas Woodcock for their project "Biodiesel from Microalgae Harvesting."

Second Prize has been awarded to the team of Ravi Balgobin, Adam Papini and Mark Szynkaruk for their project "Mitigation of Greenhouse Gases by Using Coal in Bio-Oil Slurry."

Third prize has been awarded to Spencer Cleaver and Matthew Harkins for their project "Treatment of Aqueous Water from Nuclear Operations to Remove Trace Radionuclide and Toxic Metals (AECL)."

A new category for Safety was also announced and awarded.  The Safety Prize goes to the team of Ravi Balgobin, Adam Papini and Mark Szynkaruk for their project "Mitigation of Greenhouse Gases by Using Coal in Bio-Oil Slurry."

Check back soon for more information on all of the project entries and their presentations!

Go Green Challenge

Two Western students, Peter Schnurr and Hilary Booth, are one of four winning teams in the TD friends of the Environment Go Green Challenge with their submission "Sustainable Food and Energy Production: Closing the loop from farm field waste".

Currently, organic matter from municipal waste is often landfilled, thereby wasting precious stored energy and nutrients. This team’s plan involves proposed technology that will utilize organic waste diversion systems to create renewable energies and organic fertilizers. This would be done by anaerobically digesting separated municipal organic waste to create methane gas, by taking the nutrient rich liquid bi-product to grow algae for the production of biodiesel and other bio-products, and by taking the nutrient rich solid digestate from the anaerobic digesters to replenish lost nutrients in farm fields.

Dr. Amarjeet Bassi, a Professor in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering at Western, was the faculty sponsor.

Click here for more information on the Go Green Challenge and here for more information on Dr. Bassi's research.