Develop innovative processes and devices to extract strategic materials and design of advanced materials
Our research group takes a combined theoretical and experimental approach to address the world major challenges, including growing demand for natural resources (mainly energy & materials) and anthropogenic environmental impacts, through enhancement of existing processes and development of new materials and production routes in various industrial sectors: energy, water, and metals. Our research lies at the intersection of “Process Engineering”, “Electrochemistry”, and “Materials Science”. Our research combines fundamental science and engineering principals to arrive at solutions for real world applications.
The first mission of our research program is “to develop innovative hydrometallurgical, supercritical, and electrochemical processes for extraction and recycling of strategic materials including REEs, PGMs, lithium, and iron”. The second mission of our group is “to develop game-changing processes and devices (e.g., batteries) to address the sustainability challenges in terms of energy, environment, and materials criticality”. The third mission of our group is “to design and fabricate advanced materials with controlled properties including hydrophobicity (non-wetting), scale-resistivity, transparency, and electrical properties".
High pressure acid leaching; atmospheric leaching; process modelling (OLI software, FactSage, and Aspen Plus); super critical fluid extraction; molten electrolysis; materials synthesis; solubility measurements; battery fabrication; battery testing; high temperature materials testing.
- Chemical industries
- Clean technology
- Energy
- Mining, minerals and metals
Specialized labs and equipment
Name of equipment in use | Description of function |
---|---|
Inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) | To measure concentration of ions in electrolytes |
Autoclave | High pressure experiments |
Gas Chromatograph | To measure gas concentrations to ppm levels |
Microreactor | Perform supercritical extraction |
High temperature vertical tube furnace | To perform molten salt/oxide electrolysis |
High temperature chamber furnace | Pyrometallurgy, carbothermic reduction, sintering and materials synthesis |
Potentio/galvanostat | Electrochemical testing |
Battery tester | Test up to 16 batteries simultaneously |
Pouch cell assembly line | Full facilities for slurry mixing, doctor-blade coating, cutters/welders, vacuum sealer |
Private and public sector research partners
- Agrium
- BEMISA (Brasil Exploração Mineral S.A.)
- GreenMantra Technologies
- H.C. Starck
- Hatch
- Mercedes Benz Research and Development North America
- Nutrien
- Potent Group
- Rio Tinto
- Tenova Goodfellow
- Vale
Additional information
Title | URL |
---|---|
Mining your phone: Recovering rare earth elements from e-waste | https://news.engineering.utoronto.ca/mining-your-phone-recovering-rare-earth-elements-from-e-waste/ |
A whole new world for rare earths | https://www.labs.chem-eng.utoronto.ca/azimi/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/2017/10/ANewWorldForRareEar… |