Chemistry on Mars
RESEARCH
Just over a year ago, the biggest Mars space exploration vehicle, or rover, yet built was gently lowered from a rocket-powered ‘sky crane’ onto the surface of the red planet.
Read More >>Deadly Dust
MATERIALS
In January 2012, an explosion at the Babine Forest Products sawmill in Burns Lake, B.C. killed two workers and injured 19. Three months later a second explosion, this one at the Lakeland Mills sawmill in Prince George, B.C., killed two people and injured 22. In both cases, combustible dust from mountain pine beetle-killed wood was...
Read More >>The many faces of bioplastics
POLYMERS
Plastics get a bad rap. While they improve our lives in countless ways, from food safety to medical care, their inertness and disinclination to break down — the very properties that make them so useful in most applications — raise the spectre of pollution. Spurred on by images of the vast collection of marine debris...
Read More >>The power of spin
INNOVATION
There has been so much thought put into anticipating, avoiding, and destroying tornadoes that I became quite intrigued in early 2007 when I received the following...
Read More >>Molten solution
INNOVATION
Neil Camarta just can’t seem to stay retired. After 35 years in the oil industry, including stints at Shell and Suncor, the chemical engineer from Edson, Alta. is now in what he calls the ‘crackpot business,’ taking risks on maverick new technologies. His current project is Western Hydrogen, a company that recently launched the world’s...
Read More >>Cold Case
ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMISTRY
As the days wax longer, few of us care to dwell on the snow and ice that dominated the landscape only weeks ago. But for the scientists trying to explain and predict the movement of chemicals in our environment — from contaminants like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) to atmospheric gases like ozone — snow and ice...
Read More >>Human Factor
INNOVATION
These days, technical skills alone do not an engineer make. Over the last decade, engineering schools across Canada have focused increasingly...
Read More >>Alumina Upended
MATERIALS
Richard Boudreault was lying awake at night, pondering two seemingly disparate things: stomach acid ...
Read More >>Mass Appeal
COMMUNICATIONS
By day you can find Rui Resendes at the Kingston, Ont. headquarters of GreenCentre Canada.
Read More >>Keeping all the balls in the air
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
Imagine this: You’re an early thirty-something PhD graduate, newly married, on the cusp of realizing your personal and professional aspirations...
Read More >>Job seeker, know thyself
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
In this issue's Q and A, ACCN speaks with Alan Kearns, founder of the career management firm CareerJoy, about how chemists and chemical engineers on the job hunt can leverage their skills.
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