Innovation Anthology #240:
When Dr. Carlo Montemagno talks about nano-enabled biomaterials and sustainable living, he’s talking about engineering in its most fundamental form.
And that’s taking the most basic molecular constituents of living systems and reorganizing them into new materials and products.
Dr. Montemagno presented his vision of the future at the recent Conference on Nanotechnology and Forest Products. This was hosted by TAPPI and Alberta Ingenuity.
DR. CARLO MONTEMAGNO: Well the examples that I had talked about were extracting out proteins for making materials that produce electricity, making materials that purify water, making materials that perform functions like filtering, sorting different sorts of molecules. Materials that have a high level of functionality and the raw materials that we need to use are the basic chemical constituencies that are found within the cells within trees.
According to Dr. Carlo Montemagno, pulp and lumber mills can be retrofitted to harvest their cellular waste streams for biomaterials.
And several of these new products will be ready for market in 1 to 5 years.
Thanks today to Alberta Ingenuity.
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I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
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Alberta Ingenuity
Established in 2000, the Alberta Ingenuity Fund supports science and engineering research of the highest calibre, to create a prosperous future for the province of Alberta. It draws funding from a $1 billion endowment established in 2000 and managed by the Government of Alberta to build the capacity for innovation, especially in areas with long lasting social and economic impact.
Among its many programs, Alberta Ingenuity supports graduate students and university researchers, industrial research and commercialization partnerships, and has established several Centres and Institutes.
In January 2010, under the new Alberta Innovation Framework, Alberta Ingenuity was restructured and absorbed in the new agency Alberta Innovates Technology Solutions.
Program Date: 2009-07-09