Advisor: Cristina Amon, Dean Editor: Table of Contents Madelyn Herschorn Managing Editor: Liz Do Living Cities Feature Writers: Wayne MacPhail Cities and towns grow. They produce waste. They breathe and move. Sharon Oosthoek 2 Now engineers are starting to think about centres as if they were alive. With Thanks to: Vanessa Abaya Stewart Aitchison Up in the Air D. Grant Allen (ChemE 8T1, MASc 8T3) Colin Anderson For something that rarely touches the ground, a plane has a huge Olenka Baron carbon footprint. U of T Engineers are making the wild blue yonder Estina Boddie 4 Kate Brand a lot greener. Dawn Britton Sharon Brown Sanjeev Chandra Industry: The Sustainable Green Giant Will Cluett Joan DaCosta When you think sustainable — manufacturing, data centres and heavy Chris Damaren (EngSci 8T0, AeroE MASc 8T7, PhD 9T0) industry aren’t the first things that come to mind. That’s about to change. Sonia De Buglio (ChemE 9T4, MASc 9T8) 7 Carolyn Farrell Shilpa Gantotti Power Profs Deirdre Gomes Raj Grainger In the race to get stronger, faster and smaller; batteries, solar Susan Grant cells and capacitors have been held back by simple chemistry. Nina Haikara 10 Jennifer Hsu But the brain power of U of T Engineering researchers are giving Janet Hunter Bryan Karney them a boost in the right direction. Brenda McCabe (CivE 9T4) Susan McCahan Rob Milchard All Together Now Liam Mitchell If U of T’s researchers are to turn the world from a bleak to Sachiko Murakami Megan Murphy 15 a bright sustainable future, they’ll need to meet and share Farid Najm Cynthia Nevins the best ideas — and they’ll do that in the new Centre for Luke Ng (ChemE 0T7) Sustainable Energy. Jun Nogami (EngSci 8T0) Shannon Osborne (IndE 0T6) Elizabeth Raymer 18 Plus: Sustainability in a Major and Minor Key Doug Reeve (ChemE MASc 6T9, PhD 7T1) U of T Engineering students can power up in new clusters J. Paul Santerre Takara Small of energy and environmentally focused courses. Geoff Wichert David Zingg (EngSci 7T9, AeroE MASc 8T1, PhD 8T8) Then they’ll be ready to take on the world. Jean Zu Photography: Mark Balson Dani Couture Awards & Accolades Sean Moore Design: 19 Engineering Alumni Association Awards Symbiosis Designs Inc. 19 Printing: Exodus Graphics Corp. 21 Engineering Hall of Distinction Privacy Policy: 23 Faculty Awards & Accolades The University of Toronto respects your privacy. We do not rent, trade or sell our mailing lists. If you 25 2011 Gordon Cressy Student Leadership Awards do not wish to receive this publication, or would like A sampling of the rising stars that have done Skule™ proud to update your address, please contact: [email protected] ™ or 1-800-463-6048, local to Toronto: 416-978-2139. Biz Skule We invite your letters, submissions, news, comments, and address changes. Please email: — A Fresh Take on Business Networking [email protected] Plus the new Biz Minor & Certificate: a powerful collaboration 26 Skulematters is published by the Faculty of between U of T Engineering and the Rotman School of Management Applied Science & Engineering at the University of Toronto for alumni, faculty, students, staff and friends of Skule™. Departments/Divisions/Institutes RETURN MAILING ADDRESS: Office of Advancement 28 Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering ™ University of Toronto Skule Events Calendar Galbraith Building 35 St. George Street, Room 116 Toronto, Ontario 37 Canada M5S 1A4 Tel: +1 416-978-0380 Fax: +1 416-946-3450 On the cover: A textual interpretation of the many facets of sustainability at the Publication Mail Agreement #: 40062475 University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. © 2011 All Rights Reserved Skulematters 2011 Dean’s Message SUSTAIN ABILITY Welcome to this special issue of Skulematters. The focus of this entire issue of several key centres that is sustainability, a subject will support research in that touches all our lives. the areas of clean water, Fortunately, engineers – and power systems and resilient especially engineers at the infrastructure. Investment in University of Toronto – are these initiatives will enable us working on innovative solutions to develop a system approach and inventions that make towards sustainable growth industry, cities and technologies and development that more sustainable. will re-imagine our built In this issue, we will be looking environments and protect at some of the world-leading our planet for the benefit sustainability research at the of generations to come. U of T that is taking place in We will also nurture the many facets of the Faculty. entrepreneur inside the engineer. Great opportunities reside Our new Engineering Business here that set us apart from minor, to start in fall 2011, others in Canada and put us will encourage engineering among the leaders in the students to become more world. Our engineers are at entrepreneurial and build the forefront of research in our reputation as graduating clean and renewable energy, engineers who are also strong clean water, bioremediation, in business. That way, U of T power systems, sustainable Engineering can sustain and mining practice and urban grow our reputation as a infrastructure. global leader in creating new Sustainability is not about Photo/Christopher Lawson Photography possibilities for everyone who turning our back on technology. values our world. It is about creating efficiencies, At U of T Engineering, we thrive I hope you enjoy this Skulematters applying creativity to challenging on that challenge and have risen problems, providing new to the occasion again and again. issue. I invite you to contact us opportunities and shepherding We make things happen and invent with any feedback you may have, our scarce and non-renewable the future. And, with the new and accept my warm wishes on resources. It is about invention, Centre for Sustainable Energy behalf of your alma mater. not rejection. And it is about that is described in this issue, we doing that in a way that boosts will lead in the way we share our the global knowledge economy collective knowledge with each and surfaces opportunities for other and the world. In addition, Cristina Amon future innovation. we are exploring the establishment Dean 2011 Skulematters 1 Feature Story Living Cities More than half the world’s of waste,” he says. “Cities do the population now lives in urban areas, same thing. Cities grow. They bring with more of us congregating in in energy and produce waste.” cities every year. But as they grow, Kennedy is focused on a particular these centres create waste that, type of waste – greenhouse gases if not properly managed, could be – and has created a system for their undoing. calculating a given city’s emissions. His The key to a city’s sustainability lies inventory tallies emissions produced in understanding its “metabolism,” both inside the city (from car exhaust, says Civil Engineering Professor for example) and outside (power Chris Kennedy. plants that provide electricity to city homes and businesses). “If you look up the dictionary definition of metabolism of an “It’s about being carbon numerate,” organism, it’s the sum of the chemical says Kennedy. Tenaglia Photo/Michael Chemical Engineering Professor Elizabeth processes that result in energy Kennedy compiled greenhouse gas Edwards, the Director of BioZone production, growth and elimination inventories of 40 cities for the World for collaborative bioengineering Bank, which it uses to decide how to research. spend its development funds. The bank recently gave Thailand money for Soils contaminated with cancer- Bangkok, based on the inventory causing dry-cleaning chemicals Kennedy assembled for that city and industrial degreasers are and the plan Bangkok submitted especially hard to clean up. These to deal with it. chlorinated solvents are denser than water and sink deep into the The healing power ground where there is little oxygen of real living organisms to help them break down. Chemical Engineering Professor Elizabeth Edwards is focused on But a recently discovered class of different kinds of waste, and using micro-organisms living in these living organisms to detoxify them. soils “breathe chlorinated solvents like we breathe oxygen,” says Edwards. “We’ve discovered some micro- In doing so, they break down the organisms have gotten used to solvents into harmless components. chemicals we use a lot in cities, like gasoline and dry-cleaning solvents,” But just as we can’t function on oxygen Photo/John Hryniuk Photo/John says Edwards, who is also the alone, these micro-organisms can’t Civil Engineering Professor Chris Kennedy Director of BioZone, a new centre decompose chlorinated contaminants 2 Skulematters 2011 Feature Story Engineers are thinking about towns and cities as living organisms. We show how engineering can make them happy and healthy ones. unless they have something to eat. Singapore to come up with reliable that is causing toxicity. In fact, that So Edwards has come up with processes ways to remove pharmaceuticals soot may be helping to trap some of for adding nutrients to soil so the that end up in wastewater every the toxic compounds,” says Evans. organisms are fed and active. time someone on medication Evans not only evaluates emissions flushes the toilet. She and her team recently sold the technologies, he also examines the licence for the technology they He is also testing an artificial impact of various airborne particles created to feed and grow one of intelligence system that he and on human health. Working with the these micro-organisms to SiREM, alumna Kelly Griffiths (CivE MASc SOCAAR team, he examines how a Guelph, Ont.-based company. 1T0) designed for a London, Ont. lung cells react to such particles, and SiREM now uses the technology to drinking water treatment plant to also how real human volunteers react clean up contaminated sites.