The Complete Engineer - Spring-Summer 2017

COMPLETE

THE

SPRING/SUMMER 2017

ENGINEER THE MAGAZINE OF THE FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE AT QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY

The new faces of Queen’s Engineering Meet Dr. Suzan Eren, one of the new faculty members who’ve recently joined Queen’s Engineering

Page 4

INSIDE Read about some of

the amazing new research being conducted

PLUS Dean Woodhouse gives her final message

ALUMNI NE WS

CONTENTS SPRING/SUMMER 2017 DEAN

Kimberly A. Woodhouse DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS

Adam Walker COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST

Matt Mills CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Matt Mills Jordan Whitehouse GRAPHIC DESIGN

Walker Design + Communications

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message from the dean A Final thoughts from Dean Woodhouse

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A message from Associate Dean Amir Fam (Research and Graduate Studies) New faculty members, new facilities, new funds, and new awards are all spurring on innovative research at the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science

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Bits and bytes

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A smarter grid for a greener future Assistant Professor Suzan Eren’s work will help make more efficient use of renewable energy

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Meet new Civil Engineering Professor Katerina Genikomsou By developing new materials and new methods, we will be able to lengthen the life of our existing infrastructure and save taxpayers money

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Mining Systems Laboratory researchers refine autonomous mine equipment in Sweden Associate Professor Josh Marshall and his team are doing exciting work in this dynamic field

10 Lab-on-a-chip: Faster, cheaper diagnostic testing for everyone

Dr. Ravi Prakash is seeking to advance healthcare technology

PHOTOGRAPHY

Matt Mills Rob Whelan CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

James Hubay Matt Mills Mark Witten CONTACT INFORMATION

14 A better way

Assistant Professor Ahmad Ghahreman’s new process could dramatically cut the cost of

arsenic immobilization in mine waste 16 Alumni engagement

We have been across the country, with events in Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary, and,

of course, Kingston

Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science Queen’s University Beamish-Munro Hall 45 Union Street Kingston, ON K7L 3N6 Tel 613.533.2055 Fax 613.533.6500 Email complete.engineer@queensu.ca

Kevin Deluzio to become FEAS Dean

COMPLETE

THE

SPRING/SUMMER 2017

ENGINEER THE MAGAZINE OF THE FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE AT QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY

The new faces of Queen’s Engineering Meet Dr. Suzan Eren, one of the new faculty members who’ve recently joined Queen’s Engineering

Page 4

INSIDE Read about some of

the amazing new research being conducted

PLUS Dean Woodhouse gives her final message

Read about ECE Assistant Professor Suzan Eren, page 4

On May 1st, Queen’s University announced the appointment of Kevin Deluzio as Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science for a five-year term effective July 1st, 2017.

Dr. Deluzio, a proud alumnus of Queen’s, was the head of the Department

of Mechanical and Materials Engineering as well as head of the Human Mobility Research Laboratory at Queen’s. He has been a member of faculty at Queen’s since 2006.

Previously, he was the founder and director of the Dynamics and Human Motion Laboratory at Dalhousie University and an associate professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering, cross appointed to the Department of Surgery.

“I am very pleased that Dr. Deluzio has accepted my invitation to lead the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science at Queen’s,” says Daniel Woolf, Principal and Vice-Chancellor. “I am confident that the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science will continue to grow in reputation and impact under his leadership.”

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Dean’s Message

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elcome to the Spring/Summer 2017 edition of The Complete Engineer, and my last message as Dean.

This edition of The Complete Engineer is focused on research and the amazing work being undertaken to advance discovery and innovation in our faculty. Research is increasingly a team effort—interdisciplinary and collaborative—both across campus and around the world.

Our researchers are recognized globally for their work and their contributions to international consortia and initiatives.

Over the last 10 years, our outstanding team of faculty members, staff, students, and alumni has transformed the Faculty—from new buildings and innovative programming—to award-winning discoveries. It has been a privilege to have worked with such a dedicated group of individuals who have made this a truly exciting decade for the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science.

It’s a pleasure to leave you in wonderful hands. Dr. Kevin Deluzio is an outstanding leader, as well as an exceptional teacher and researcher. I know that all of you will support him as we continue building on our reputation as one of Canada’s finest engineering schools.

As I move on to the next chapter in my career, I’d like to thank all of you—associate deans, department heads, faculty members, staff, students, and alumni—for your commitment and your support through my time as dean.

Your guidance, optimism, and generosity of spirit have been inspiring to me, and have made my years as dean so very rich with opportunity.

“

It has been a privilege to have worked with

such a dedicated group

”

of individuals who have

made this a truly exciting decade for the

Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science.

Kimberly A. Woodhouse, PhD, PEng, FCAE, FBSE Dean, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science

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FACULT Y

Associate Dean’s Message

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t’s been a year since I took on the role of Associate Dean (Research & Graduate Studies), and over that time I’ve had the opportunity to learn so much about the research activities in the Faculty and the many achievements of my colleagues.

Now, with new funding opportunities, new spaces, and new researchers joining our faculty, we’re looking forward to another exciting and active year of discovery.

Our inaugural Dean’s Research Fund (see story opposite page) call was a great success, with nearly 50 faculty members collaborating on 12 submitted applications. The $750,000 fund is designed to leverage larger grants and support largescale, transformative projects that have a strategic value to the Faculty and the University and position us as a leader in a key research area. It’s an opportunity to think big and We are leaders in so many achieve big dreams. The funds spheres of innovation, can be used in a number of and poised to strategically ways, such as building a case for a large project, bringing position ourselves at the together collaborators to forefront of discovery brainstorm, or to carry out of new, disruptive pilot experiments to gather technologies that are physical evidence and data.

“ ”

I’m also looking forward to welcoming new researchers to campus, including some who are featured in this issue. They bring fresh ideas and collaborative opportunities while gaining the advantage of joining a strong faculty with a wealth of experience and expertise. Our faculty renewal is timely, as we continue to build our areas of research excellence and develop new areas of emerging strength, such as human-machine collaborations. Our new interdisciplinary Centre for HuManC will span the continuum of interactions between humans and machines, such as smart vehicles, robotics, bionics, biosensors, living infrastructure, and exoskeletons, and will position Queen’s as a leader in this high priority area. The HuManC labs, along with the new Beaty Water Research Centre, will be housed in the Innovation and Wellness Centre, scheduled to open in the spring of 2018.

This is an exciting time for research at Queen’s. We are leaders in so many spheres of innovation, and poised to strategically position ourselves at the forefront of discovery of new, disruptive technologies that are changing our world. I hope you enjoy reading about our work, and that it inspires you as much as it inspires me.

changing our world.

The six projects that received funding are diverse and representative of key areas of research strength within our Faculty, including development of a new Queen’s University Centre of Biofabrication, next-generation autonomous vehicles, wireless systems, bio-sourced polymers for environmental and structural applications, and metal additive manufacturing. We were very impressed by the quality of the proposals and the response to the funding call, and we look forward to launching the next round while seeing how these projects evolve.

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Dr. Amir Fam, FACI, FCSCE, FASCE, FIIFC, FEIC, PEng Associate Dean (Research & Graduate Studies), Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science

Bi ts a n d b y t e s Kim earns Excellence in Research Award Dr. Il Yong Kim, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, is this year’s recipient of the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science (FEAS) Excellence in Research Award.

The prize recognizes outstanding contributions by faculty members to the research environment in the FEAS at Queen’s University. Winners of the award receive a grant of $10,000 to be used to support their research. The award is intended to reward faculty for their research leadership and for fostering collaborative growth at the graduate level within the Faculty. Only assistant and associate professors are eligible, and they are to be nominated by heads of departments or by other faculty members.

“As a university professor, research and education are combined together,” says

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Kim. “I always emphasize very applied, practical, technological development with industry partners in my research program, in addition to fundamental academic research. By working on industrial collaboration projects, many of my students work for these companies as full-time interns. It’s great real-world experience. All my former graduate students, with no exception, are very successful. No single graduate student has had a hard time finding a job.

“I plan to use this money as seed money for new large-scale opportunities,” he adds. “The real thing is it’s fun. It’s exciting. And there are bright people, talented people in industry that I like to work with. By working with industry, I see the result implemented or realized in the real market. This is pleasing. There’s a lot of satisfaction for me.”

EXCELLENCE IN RESEARCH: “By working with industry, I see the result implemented or realized in the real market,” says Associate Professor Il Yong Kim. “This is pleasing. There’s a lot of satisfaction.”

Dean’s Research Fund The Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science has established the new Dean’s Research Fund, totalling $750,000. A competition was announced last fall to determine who would receive the funding. The fund is intended to be used as seed money, and is expected to be leveraged at a larger scale using provincial or federal funding programs (e.g., Ontario Research Fund or Canada Foundation for Innovation) to support competitive research projects that are both collaborative and transformational. Twelve proposals totalling $1.74 million and involving close to 50 faculty members were received in the recent competition. A Faculty Awards Committee, whose members were nominated by department heads, assessed the proposals. The following six are the winning projects. Awards are provided for one year. The second year of funding is contingent upon review of progress and achievements at the end of first year. n Co-investigators Brian Amsden, Laura Wells, Lindsay Fitzpatrick, and Carlos

Escobedo: Queen’s University Centre of Biofabrication - $150,000

n Co-investigators Michael Cunningham, Pascale Champagne, Amir Fam, Colin

MacDougall, and Juliana Ramsay: Customizable Bio-Sourced Polymers for Materials, Environmental and Structural Applications - $99,720

n Co-investigators Kent Novakowski, Geof Hall, Bernard Kueper, Kevin Mumford,

Juliana Ramsay, and Pascale Champagne: Fractured Rock Aquifer Groundwater Labs - $75,000

n Co-investigators Carlos Saavedra and Carlos Escobedo: Millimeter-Wave

Microfluids for Wireless Systems - $61,000

n Co-investigators Il Yong Kim and Mark Daymond: Metal Additive Manufacturing:

Design, Material, and Process - $100,000

n Co-investigators David Rival and Michael Rainbow: Bio-Inspired Propulsion for

Next-Generation Autonomous Vehicles - $69,000

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EREN

A smarter

One day our centralized power generation system, which delivers power to consumers from remote locations and still relies heavily on conventional fossil fuels, will be replaced by decentralized, localized power generation fuelled entirely by clean, renewable energy sources.

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r. Suzan Eren’s research mission is to develop new power conversion technologies with smart grid features that will accelerate the transition to locally distributed, renewable power generation systems.

“My research is focused on using advanced control and signal processing techniques to increase the efficiency and improve the performance of renewable

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energy power systems, while reducing the overall costs,” she says. Dr. Eren (Sc’06, MSc’08, PhD’13) is an assistant professor in the Queen’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a member of ePOWER, the Queen’s Centre for Energy and Power Electronics Research Group..

During her PhD studies, Eren developed and implemented new

control methods to improve the performance, stability, and efficiency of grid-connected voltage source inverters.

A grid-connected solar micro-inverter, for example, is a device that harvests and converts power from rooftop solar panels to a usable form and delivers it to the utility electricity grid. She proposed and tested an advanced digital control technique, called “composite

grid for a greener future get a patent out and you know it will be bi-directional, grid-connected AC-DC used for some practical applications, it’s power converters. “The control system exciting and validating,” says Eren, who in the grid-connected power converter holds 12 issued and pending U.S. patents is the centre of intelligence, which tells for renewable energy applications. the power converter what to do,” she The future success of renewable says. “This advanced control technique power usage through distributed optimizes performance for a larger generation lies in the successful range of grid frequencies, which will implementation of smart grid systems. be important for future distributed These systems will need to efficiently generation systems.” manage solar energy that can only be Developing intelligent grid-connected harvested during power converters that the daytime as well are smart grid ready as intermittent wind is one of the keys to Renewable energy sources energy. They’ll making a distributed also require energy renewable energy tend to be intermittent, storage battery system reliable and and we need to manage the power commercially viable. units to store excess energy and release they produce wisely.

For her next step, it when needed.

Eren is now building “As localized power a next-generation generation systems hybrid microgrid lab become more prevalent, it’s essential that in the ePOWER centre at Queen’s which they offer a higher level of reliability than will include DC sources of solar energy, what they currently offer,” explains Eren.

AC sources of wind energy, and energy “Renewable energy sources tend to be storage units. Unlike typical microgrids intermittent, and we need to manage the where all DC and AC sources and loads power they produce wisely. The only way are mixed, her hybrid microgrid system to guarantee a higher level of reliability is will house all DC sources and loads in by implementing smart grid features that a DC microgrid and all AC sources and provide intelligent energy management loads in an AC microgrid. “My idea is to between various local energy sources.” create next-generation hybrid microgrids, After completing her PhD, Eren which will be a superior solution for focused her research on developing future distributed generation systems,” advanced control techniques and systems she says. “The interface between them to integrate power converters and solar will be a power converter with a control micro-inverters into future smart grids. system to manage their interactions From 2013 through 2016, she tackled efficiently. For example, if there is extra these research problems during a postpower in the AC microgrid, it will doctoral fellowship in the ePower lab at be transferred to the DC microgrid Queen’s and by working as a research when needed. The main challenge is to and development engineer at Sparq manage the power well between the two Systems, where she gained valuable microgrids and make sure the two support hands-on industry experience to advance each other in order to ensure reliability.” the technology.

Eren’s hybrid microgrid will be One of the intelligent features Eren a testbed and template for turning developed for a grid-connected inverter distributed generation systems into a was a hybrid estimator for active/reactive viable mainstream solution for efficient, power control, which is able to quickly reliable, and low-cost clean energy and accurately estimate how much power generation and use. “I see this as the is being generated by the renewable future, where power generation systems energy sources. This technique has been are headed,” she says. “The goal is to implemented in Sparq’s micro-inverters have microgrids everywhere. I want it to and is being patented. She also developed happen sooner rather than later. That’s a control technique, called an “adaptive my mission, and I feel like I’m up to the proportional-resonant controller,” for challenge.”

“ ”

nonlinear feedback,” for a grid-connected DC-AC inverter, which significantly improved the quality and robustness of the injected power into the grid. “The variable and sometimes erratic nature of the power produced by wind turbines and photovoltaic panels makes their controllability an important challenge to solve,” says Eren, who joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in January.

She also developed a DC-bus voltage control method for a grid-connected inverter. It has been patented and is now being used in next-generation microinverters designed and produced by Kingston-based SPARQ Systems Inc. for home solar systems in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. “When you

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G E N I KO M S O U

Meet new Civil Engineering Professor Katerina Genikomsou

“The concept of my research here at Queen’s University is going to be a combination of laboratory testing and nonlinear finite element analysis of innovative reinforced concrete connections using new materials such as high performance fiber-reinforced concrete,” says Genikomsou.

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mpressed and inspired by the complex design and construction of buildings and bridges across North America and Europe, Queen’s Engineering Professor Dr. Katerina Genikomsou decided early on that she wanted to pursue a career in civil and structural engineering.

Following her passion for both mathematics and physics, and some insightful advice from family members, Genikomsou set her sights on academia, attending the Democritus University of Thrace in Greece and the University of Waterloo, where she earned her MSc and PhD in civil engineering, respectively.

“I always wanted to learn something new and deepen my knowledge,” says Genikomsou. “After completing my bachelor’s and master’s, I wanted to continue for a PhD to be involved with actual research and expand my horizons tremendously. During my PhD I had access to important experiences that had been proven essential in my current and future academic career pursuits.”

Bringing along with her a passion for learning, Genikomsou joined the Department of Civil Engineering at Queen’s in January 2017 as an assistant professor, a position that grants her the opportunity to continue her research and also teach. This year Genikomsou was awarded both a Research Initiation Grant from Queen’s and a Discovery Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, allowing her to explore new, intriguing research possibilities.

“During the previous century, civil engineers constructed significant infrastructure, helping all people around the world,” says Genikomsou. “Now civil engineers are required to learn to maintain the already built infrastructure and develop new sustainable materials, new processes, and an improved understanding of how these new materials can perform in structural applications.”

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I’m inspired to promote innovative teaching methods into the

classroom for the civil engineering analysis and design courses.

The global implications and applications of her research are both exciting and practical; and they have the ability to potentially improve the lifespan of structures and save taxpayers millions.

Genikomsou is searching for industry partners with whom she can work collaboratively to tackle structural engineering problems. They are relationships that could lead to new funding for the Department of Civil Engineering, and she hopes to eventually receive industry backing to provide graduate students with state-of-the-art research facilities.

As a member of multiple noteworthy groups such as the American Concrete Institute, the American Society of

Civil Engineers, and the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering, Genikomsou has already established connections with researchers and industry professionals around the world. This level of international involvement has given her the opportunity to attend conferences and present at several prestigious conventions.

During her first semester at Queen’s, Genikomsou took advantage of the various teaching workshops offered by the university. Many of these workshops focus on the varying learning styles of students and the development and incorporation of new educational techniques into the classroom.

“I’m inspired to promote innovative teaching methods into the classroom for the civil engineering analysis and design courses,” says Genikomsou. “I really think that by becoming a professor in academia, I have a career in which I belong. I am continually growing and developing as an instructor and I look forward to continuing this growth through future teaching opportunities at Queen’s University, where I would be honoured to pursue my teaching goals and to contribute towards the highquality education of future engineers.”

Genikomsou is actively seeking graduate students to join her research team, and in the fall she will teach Structural Analysis (CIVL 330), where she will look to bring state-of-the-art teaching pedagogy to her students.

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MARSHALL

Mining Systems Laborato autonomous mine equip How Queen’s engineers are designing the future of mining

THE SOFTWARE OF LEARNING: Queen’s PhD student Heshan Fernando underground at the Kvarntorp Mine working on robotic loading for mining machines.

E

ngineering professor and Mining Systems Laboratory Director Dr. Josh Marshall has spent most of the last year leading a team of Queen’s graduate students on a series of research and development projects in Örebro, Sweden.

Mine operators around the globe continue to build for a future of increasing autonomous mine operation, and Marshall and his students have already done extensive work to develop and refine control systems for autonomous trucks and loaders. They

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FUTURE OF MINING: Atlas Copco’s Dr. Johan Larsson, Queen’s master’s student Lukas Dekker, and Queen’s Professor Joshua Marshall underground at the Kvarntorp Mine working on autonomous driving for mining vehicles.

“” We’re trying to make

autonomous Atlas Copco-built

trucks work much faster than they can now.

have, for the last five years, experimented with a small proof-of-concept test loader at Innovation Park in Kingston. The work in Sweden is a chance to now test and refine those systems on full-size,

operational underground loaders and trucks in a working mine. It’s also a chance to share the process with other experts in the field.

Marshall’s team arrived at Atlas Copco’s automation research and development facilities and the Kvarntorp Mine in August last year for the nearly year-long collaboration. As well as partnering with the mining equipment giant, Marshall’s team is also working with researchers at the Centre for Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems (AASS) at nearby Örebro University. The funding

ory researchers refine pment in Sweden

REAL-WORLD TESTING: Queen’s master’s student Jordan Mitchell and Queen’s PhD student Heshan Fernando working underground at the Kvarntorp Mine.

for the exchange comes in part from both the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Swedish Knowledge Foundation.

“With me are Heshan Fernando, a PhD student in mechanical engineering; Lukas Dekker, a master’s student in mechanical engineering; and Jordan Mitchell, a master’s student from mining engineering,” says Marshall. “There are a few subprojects—one for each student— but the main gist is that we’re trying to make autonomous Atlas Copco-built trucks work much faster than they can

SITUATIONAL AWARENESS: Queen’s master’s student Jordan Mitchell working at the Centre for Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems on a new UAV-based scanning system for underground cavities.

now. We’re also continuing with a robotic loading problem that we started work on a few years ago with Atlas Copco: How can we make autonomous loaders learn how to load better? How can we design robotic loaders that get better at digging every time they do it?”

Fernando is working on developing and refining learning-based control algorithms associated with the autonomous loading problem. Dekker is exploring new, faster, and more accurate ways autonomous vehicles can guide themselves underground.

Mitchell is working on developing a concept design for an auto-rotating cavity scanning device that could cheaply and automatically generate detailed maps of the insides of shafts or cavities.

“Fully equipped, these robotic Atlas Copco load-haul-dump machines are $1-million to $2-million pieces of equipment, so it’s kind of cool that they’re letting us write and test our code on their big, expensive hardware,” says Marshall.

“It has all worked out pretty well as a sabbatical year, and being able to bring the grad students was a bonus, too.”

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PR AK ASH

“

You’re taking the tests to the patient with hand-

”

held devices and wearable devices. The low cost and high performance of the technology makes them field deployable.

Lab-on-a-chip: Faster, diagnostic testing for Professor’s research points to a healthier future

I

magine if you could walk into your doctor’s office and have a nurse prick your finger—instead of sticking a needle into your arm—to provide a tiny droplet of blood that would allow a lab to run a battery of complex tests and deliver results on the spot. The tests could instantly identify a specific flu strain during a pandemic, measure heart disease risk, or detect cancer biomarkers before physiological symptoms appear.

Dr. Ravi Prakash, an assistant professor in the Queen’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), brought this futuristic vision closer to reality by designing a lab-ona-chip (LOC) device for bio-diagnostic applications during his post-doctoral NSERC fellowship at the University of

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Calgary and the Provincial Laboratory for Public Health in Calgary in 2015 and 2016.

“By shrinking the scale of the technology right down, this allows you to do more tests, with less volume of blood, at a lower cost, and you get the results faster,” says Prakash, who joined the ECE department in January and established the Organic Semiconductor Laboratory at Queen’s.

For this innovative research project, Prakash designed a chip technology that makes it possible to test the equivalent of a microlitre of blood, nasal swabs, and other specimen samples. He used inexpensive copolymer materials, electro-chemical methods, and micro/ nanofabrication techniques to design and build a low-cost “sample-to-answer chip” to diagnose infectious viruses in samples

, cheaper everyone

The flexible polymer microchip shown here can achieve sample-tooutcome diagnostic tests on human specimens (e.g., blood plasma, serum, nasal swab) for rapid, one-step detection.

An example illustration of discrete organic semiconductor based transistor devices, which can be electro-actuated to conduct multiple diagnostic tests in parallel, semi-automated fashion.

The miniaturized technological footprint associated with such labon-a-chip biological and biochemical sensory microsystems makes them an ideal candidate for point-of-care testing and wearable health monitoring applications.

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PR AK ASH

obtained from patients. His lab-on-a-chip seamlessly integrated the separate steps of preparing samples for testing and analyzing those samples to accurately diagnose the infection.

In a 2016 research study, Prakash’s prototype micro-device was used to analyze nasal swab samples obtained from patients for three different viral upper respiratory tract infections and also blood plasma samples for enteroviruses.

It was also used to perform multiple tests on a panel of patient samples in parallel on different channels. Because he was conducting the research onsite in the provincial lab at Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary, Prakash had the opportunity to rigorously compare the performance of his new prototype device to the standard commercial platforms used today. “If you’re developing a new technology, there is an element of doubt,” he says. “To promote such a new LOC technology, you have to show through extensive clinical validation that it works effectively and is low-cost. The study showed that our integrated nucleic acid test chip system has a sensitivity and specificity comparable to that of the standard platforms while providing up to a tenfold reduction in sample and reagent volumes.”

At Queen’s, Prakash is now applying his expertise in designing a diagnostic platform that could rapidly screen patients in hospital ICUs for different subtypes of sepsis, which is a potentially life-threatening complication that occurs when an infection spreads through the bloodstream. In the proposed

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Precision Medicine in Intensive Care project, Prakash is working with over 30 multidisciplinary researchers and several public and private sector partners to improve diagnosis and treatment for a condition that hospitalizes about 30,000 Canadians each year. “The timeline for treating sepsis is really short,” says Prakash. “Having a technology where you can rapidly identify the source of the infection could help doctors determine what kind of treatment is most appropriate to quickly control the infection.”

“

”

You can create an organic transistor in the logo of a person’s clothing

material, for example, to monitor

vital signs and potentially do many kinds of medical tests.

Prakash has also established a new research program in the Organic Semiconductor Laboratory in the ECE department where organic transistor devices are patterned at room temperature and printed on flexible surfaces. The work being done here should lead to low-cost applications such as wearable devices for health monitoring. “Organic transistor-based chemical and biological sensors are the perfect solution to create flexible devices that can conform to the skin of the

person,” says Prakash. “You can create an organic transistor in the logo of a person’s clothing material, for example, to monitor vital signs and potentially do many kinds of medical tests.” Right now Prakash is in talks with an Ontario company that designs textiles and printed electronics for wearable devices about a possible collaboration.

Soft wearable technology for health monitoring complements Prakash’s lab-on-a-chip research. It’s all part of a trend to decentralize medicine and bring healthcare closer to the patient.

As medical devices become smaller and more mobile, this opens up new ways for healthcare providers to interact with patients, perform tests, collect data, and deliver treatments. “You’re taking the tests to the patient with handheld devices and wearable devices,” says Prakash. “The low cost and high performance of the technology makes them field deployable.”

Another key goal is to develop disposable biosensors and bioelectronic actuators for applications such as programmable drug delivery systems. A biocompatible and perhaps biodegradable microchip would be implanted in patients with chronic conditions such as arthritis or osteoporosis, and sensors would release the drug in response to physiological or metabolic changes in the patient. “As an engineer working in medical technology, I see exciting opportunities to pioneer new and emerging applications that will advance healthcare technology,” says Prakash.

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This MEng is an in-class and face-toface part-time program delivered in the Greater Toronto Area.

It is the creative result of innovative thinking and leadership from the engineering and business schools of Queens University and Western University. ADMI is broadly endorsed and supported by Ontario industry, as reflected in the impressive list of companies represented by past participants in the MEng program.

ALUMNI G H ANE H RWS EMAN

A better way A Queen’s mining engineering research group has found a way to save taxpayers millions in environmental cleanup costs.

[ G

iant Mine beat at the economic heart of the Northwest Territories for more than half a century.

Some 7 million troy ounces of gold were scratched from the earth there, just a few kilometers north of Yellowknife, before the mine closed for good in 2004.

Among the many hazards left behind were 15 subterranean chambers containing more than 213,000 tons of potentially lethal arsenic trioxide dust.

That’s technically enough poison to kill everyone, everywhere, globally. It’s reasonably safe and contained where it is under dry conditions, but it’s highly soluble in water, so any moisture leaking or condensing into those chambers

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]+ means potentially toxic and sustained arsenic contamination of the water table.

Aside from the immediate mortal danger of arsenic poisoning, long exposure to elevated levels can lead to horrible and life-shortening effects, including cancer.

Now one Queen’s research team is perfecting a process that could cut the cost of immobilizing arsenic in half.

Contemporary methods for this process consume vast quantities of hydrogen peroxide, a chemical that costs about $5,000 per ton.

“Instead of hydrogen peroxide, we just use air, and that does the job for us,” says Queen’s mining engineering Assistant Professor Ahmad Ghahreman.

“You put activated carbon into a column and then pump in the mine-waste solution and air. Your only reagent from this process is oxygen from the air. The activated carbon is only a catalyst, so you don’t have to add to or change it, ever. We have been running a column in the lab for about six months and our oxidation ratio has been always above 99 per cent.”

The activated carbon can be made from coconut husks, and Ghahreman says the preparation has a one-time cost of about $2,500 per ton. The additional one-time costs for retooling existing operations include reconfiguring or adding the column reactors. The combined costs are paltry when

PREVENTING DISASTER: The Giant Mine remediation project in Yellowknife is expected to cost Canadians more than $1 billion. There is a huge amount of arsenic in underground chambers there, and it would be environmentally catastrophic if it were to leech into the water table.

= compared with those associated with the relentless need for hydrogen peroxide in contemporary processes.

Not only is it a great lifelong, cost-saving option for existing mining operations, but if Ghahreman’s method were applied to the mountain of arsenic at Giant Mine, the cost for each ton of arsenic oxidized would be less than half that of the current process. Cleaning up Giant Mine would still be like eating an elephant with a pie fork, but the final costs for a permanent solution would likely be a small fraction of those projected now. It seems almost too simple: Substitute consumable hydrogen peroxide with non-consumable inputs

Queen’s mining engineering Assistant Professor Ahmad Ghahreman

= and save thousands of dollars per ton.

How did Ghahreman and his team come up with such a seemingly simple and elegant solution?

“The idea for this process came from a paper published in 1936,” says Ghahreman. “I always tell my students that good chemistry is in older papers.

When we started looking at this we had no idea what the chemistry is behind this process. Later on, one of my students did a very good job of understanding how it works. It turns out that activated carbon and oxygen from the air combine to produce in situ a hydrogen peroxide species, in solution. Because we produce that hydrogen peroxide in situ, we don’t

have to pay for it. We just pay for the air.

That’s it.”

Ghahreman and his research team have a patent for the process in place and are looking for industry partners to implement the reactors in their existing operations.

“There are a number of companies interested in the process, but getting someone to go first is the key,” says Ghahreman. “Very likely a Canadian company will be soon to be the first to use it. My hope is someday that I could apply this process for the arsenic problem we have in the NWT for the sake of Canada’s environment. Hopefully that happens someday.”

THE COMPLETE ENGINEER

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Alumni engagement Homecoming: October 15, 2016 Engineering and Applied Science alumni, guests, faculty, emeritus professors, and current students connected at the Dean’s Reception in Beamish-Munro Hall.

Grant McIntyre Sc’80, Dalton McIntyre Sc’47, Mark McIntyre Sc’81

Sc’91 class members

Tessa Krause Sc’19, Sc’66 class members

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Ottawa: October 19, 2016 Ottawa Engineering Reception: Dean Kimberly Woodhouse, with Faculty members James McLellan Sc’81, PhD’91, Head, Chemical Engineering and Engineering Chemistry, Michael Greenspan, Head, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Kevin Deluzio Sc’88, MSc’90, PhD’98, Head, Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Jun Gao, Undergraduate Chair, Engineering Physics, and Kent Novakowski, Head, Civil Engineering, hosted an alumni reception at the Brookstreet Hotel.

Robert Sc’48 & Norma Scally, Taylor Sawadsky Sc’17, President, Engineering Society, Dean Woodhouse

Allan Sc’67 & June Artsci’66 Poole, Ed Sc’57 & Cathy Borza

Robert Sc’57 & Sheila BNSc’59, MPA’91 Murray, Jack MacLaren Sc’72

Gerry Webb Sc’70, MSc’71, Gary Loubert Sc’77, MBA’86 THE COMPLETE ENGINEER 17

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Alumni engagement Kingston: October 31, 2016 Principal Woolf announced a major gift to Queen’s in support of innovation and entrepreneurship from Gururaj (Desh) PhD’79 and Jaishree Deshpande, and Andrew Sc’83, MBA’87 and Anne Artsci’83 Dunin.

The newly named Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre will be a catalyst for innovation both at Queen’s and throughout the Eastern Ontario region. The event was attended by members of Queen’s senior leadership, faculty, staff, students, and community leaders.

Anne Artsci’83 & Andrew Sc’83, MBA’87 Dunin, Jaishree & Gururaj PhD’79 Deshpande

Gururaj Deshpande PhD’79, speaking with students

Andrew Dunin Sc’83, MBA’87, speaking with students

Gururaj Deshpande PhD’79 18 THE COMPLETE ENGINEER

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Vancouver: October 27, 2016 Dean Kimberly Woodhouse hosted an Engineering Reception at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver.

She offered thanks to Queen’s alumni, friends, parents, and corporate donors to the Engineering Campaign, and shared the impact of their support.

James Butler Sc’05, Terrence Macauley Sc’58, Bradley Hayes Sc’05, Sean Alexander Sc’99

Attendees

Anthony Wachmann Sc’75, Steve Fleck Sc’83, James Tuer Sc’84, MBA’87 THE COMPLETE ENGINEER 19

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Alumni engagement Kingston: February 24, 2017 Celebrating a new home for Water Research. Geologist and resource company entrepreneur, Ross J. Beaty, and his family, made a $5-million donation in support of the Water Research Centre at Queen’s University. The gift will help ensure collaborative research and education around freshwater resources continues to grow and thrive, with a new home in the Innovation and Wellness Centre on campus. In recognition of Ross Beaty’s generous donation, Queen’s was proud to announce the naming of The Beaty Water Research Centre.

Provost Bacon, Dean Woodhouse, Ross & Patricia Beaty, Pascale Champagne, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Bioresources Engineering, Shuang Liang BSc’16

Ross Beaty

Coastal Lab tour: Ryan Mulligan Sc’97, Ross & Patricia Beaty

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Calgary: April 4, 2017 - Calgary Engineering Reception Reflections on 10 Years as Dean. Dean Woodhouse connected with alumni and friends one last time before her term comes to a close this summer. Reception was held at the Centini Restaurant & Lounge.

Alana Kitchen Sc’86, Kevin Eck Sc’86, MBA’93, Tim Kitchen Sc’86, James Fitzgibbon Sc’86

Henry Crawford Sc’78, Christopher Baillie Sc’83, Eric Sc’83 & Christie Artsci’83 Le Dain, Russell Barss Sc’83

Ian Towers Sc’83, Russell Barss Sc’83, Graeme Bate Sc’79, MSc’87

Michael O’Connor Sc’68, PhD’76, DSc’92, Henry Crawford Sc’78

Shawn Northwood Sc’06, Brian Livingston Sc’76, John McJannett Sc’74

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You are both Our History and Our Future

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE – Development and Alumni Relations Beamish-Munro Hall, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6 www.inspiring.engineering.queensu.ca 613-533-6000 Extension 75248 inspiring.greatness@queensu.ca