Sustainability news

Sustainability programs and research at U of T Engineering are at the forefront of alternative technologies that can mitigate the impact of climate change.

From left: UTEV’s Professor Peter Lehn, Dr. Theo Soong, and Professor Olivier Trescases (all ECE) at the Electric Mobility Canada Show with Havelaar’s electric pick-up truck, the Bison. (Credit: Sonja Persram).

Electric vehicle partnership earns $9-million investment

November 10, 2017

University of Toronto Electric Vehicle Research Centre (UTEV) receives major grants to advance R&D of sustainable transportation

Chemical engineering PhD candidate Kayla Nemr and Professor Krishna Mahadevan grow yeast in a bioreactor. Along with their collaborators, they are using these organisms to transform bark, leaves and stems into the chemical building blocks of materials such as nylon. (Photo: Tyler Irving)

Natural fibres: New yeast strains could turn plant waste into fabrics

October 26, 2017

U of T Engineering researchers are developing bio-based commodity chemicals, including nylon precursors

U of T Engineering students win global speedbike competition

September 18, 2017

Vehicle achieves speed of 127.6 kilometres per hour

Polaris: Blue Sky Solar Racing team unveils its newest vehicle

August 14, 2017

Ninth-generation solar vehicle to race 3,000 kilometres across Australia in the 2017 World Solar Challenge

Postdoctoral researcher Lukas Kohl (ChemE) and undergraduate student Cynthia Jing (Year 2 EngSci) will sample homes in northern Alberta for ash left over from last summer’s wildfire. (Photo: Tyler Irving)

U of T Engineering researchers search for toxins in the aftermath of Fort McMurray wildfire

June 9, 2017

Project aims to test household dust for evidence of ash, lead contamination and more

Optimizing traffic flow between the City of Oshawa, at right, and Toronto, lower left, is one challenge that Master of Engineering students in the Cities Engineering and Management program at U of T will study in the newly established ‘teaching city.’ (Image: Google Maps).

New partnership establishes a Canadian teaching city for engineering students

June 5, 2017

A first in Canada, the agreement between academia, industry and the City of Oshawa launches the municipality east of Toronto as a ‘living lab’ for exploration in fields from traffic to urban planning

Left to right: Rahim Rezaie (U of T Engineering), Erastus M. Mwanaumo (Assistant Dean, School of Engineering, University of Zambia) and Professor Murray Metcalfe (U of T Engineering) at the University of Zambia. A partnership between U of T Engineering and various institutions in Africa aims to prepare the engineering leaders who will build the world’s fastest-growing cities.

Preparing the next generation of engineering leaders to grow Africa’s megacities sustainably

May 30, 2017

U of T Engineering initiative to offer scalable online education in partnership with universities in Mauritius, South Africa, Zambia and others

Supermileage Team lead Mengqi Wang (ECE PhD candidate) hopes improvements to her team’s student-designed and student-built vehicles will get them to the podium at the Shell Eco-Marathon Americas competition. (Photo: Marit Mitchell)

Supermileage Team aims to retake top spot at Shell Eco-Marathon Americas

April 25, 2017

Students race hyper-efficient gasoline and battery-powered vehicles at international competition in Detroit

Professor Greg Evans measure air pollution on a Toronto subway platform. A new study shows that airborne particulates in such locations are much higher than in the outside air. (Photo: Tyler Irving)

Toronto’s subways expose passengers to more air pollution than Montreal, Vancouver systems

April 25, 2017

Airborne particulates on subway platforms and trains are up to 10 times higher than outside air, around three times higher than levels in Montreal’s Metro

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