Alberta is investing $15 million across five Western Canadian organizations in order to help boost regional advancements in carbon fibre production technologies.
Alberta Innovates and Emissions Reduction Alberta announced this week the funded projects representing Phase III of the region’s Carbon Fibre Grand Challenge.
“Carbon Fibre is a significant opportunity . . . to diversify our economy,” stated Nate Glubish, who serves as Alberta’s Minister of Technology and Innovation. “Accelerating innovation in this field is the first step to unlocking enormous value.”
Among 13 applicants, all five funded projects involve producing carbon fibre from Alberta bitumen at scale and at lower cost than current carbon fibre products, according to official details of the friendly competition—including two projects based in the Vancouver region.
“It takes more than good ideas to commercialize and deploy new technologies that reduce emissions and grow the economy,” says Justin Riemer, chief executive of ERA.
Rebecca Schulz, Minister of Environment and Protected Areas, added that “This funding shows just how aligned our innovation system is when it comes to advancing transformative technologies that lead to future materials and markets.”
From BC, two projects made the cut.
One is Vancouver-based NORAM Engineering, who is applying low temperature stabilization and bulk processing techniques toward the production of lower-cost asphaltene-based short carbon fibres. The engineering firm received $1.44M from Alberta Innovates.
The other recipient is the University of British Columbia. UBC garnered an impressive $2.6M from Alberta Innovates as well as $1.4M from ERA for a total of $4M in funding toward its own crack at innovating carbon fibre production.
Albertan recipients included Calgary’s Enlighten Innovations, who received a total of $2M, and Carbomat—also from Calgary—who received $3.8M.
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