Sponsored by Ryerson University, Department of Chemical Engineering
The Award in Design and Industrial Practice is presented for innovative design or production activities accomplished in Canada.
View the Terms of Reference and list of Past Winners

The 2021 winner of the Award in Design and Industrial Practice is:
Wenli Duo, MCIC
FPInnovations
Dr. Wenli Duo, P.Eng., received his BSc from Tsinghua University, China, MASc from the Institute of Chemical Metallurgy (now the Institute of Process Engineering), Chinese Academy of Sciences, and PhD from the Technical University of Denmark. He worked as Research Fellow at Abo Akademi, Finland, University of Surrey, UK, and UBC, and as Process Engineer at Levelton Engineering, Canada. He is currently a Principal Scientist of FPInnovations and Adjunct Professor of UBC.
He has worked on R&D and practical applications of high-temperature multiphase chemistry and thermochemical processes for biomass energy, bioproducts, and control of air pollution and GHG emissions. He created the Crystallization and Fracture Model, an original approach, to describe product layer formation of gas-solid reactions and steam reactivation of SO2 removal sorbents. His dioxin-control innovations achieved 68% reduction of dioxin emissions for British Columbia. Industrial application of FPI technologies for power and recovery boiler optimization generated $50 million benefits for many pulp-paper mills and reduction of 180,000 t/y of CO2 emissions.
Dr. Duo was a recipient of FPI’s Innovation Recognition Award three times (2019, 2017, 2016), I.H. Weldon Award (2008), and Douglas Jones Award for Environment Improvement (2008) from Pulp and Paper Technical Association of Canada.